The Way of Love

The Way of Love ain’t easy [pause]. Love isn’t warm fuzzies, rosy specs and feet barely touching the ground. Love’s more than sympathy, it’s grounded and sacrificial. I was touched by this account of two women from the Episcopal Church who were showing kindness to protesters on the patio of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Lafayette Square, across the street from the White House on June 01.

Without any warning (that they were aware of), police approached with flash grenades, rubber bullets and some kind of ‘tear gas’. The women weren’t there as a political statement, they were there to support people around them, giving out water and granola bars, and helping with first aid because Black Lives Matter had set up a First Aid station on the church patio. One of the women had worked as an emergency room nurse for 18 years and offered her assistance if needed and she was attending to someone when the police action occurred – unexpected because the protesters were peaceful.

Church gates with neat shadows! in my street. Tapanui, West Otago, New Zealand

I hope you’ll read the story because it’s an actual account from people who were there and what they experienced.

The woman with 18 years emergency nursing experience is a biracial woman of African American and European descent (her son is an EMT who works in an emergency room). She is a 48-year-old postulant for the priesthood. — this made me stop and consider the wide range of people caught up in these events, the term ‘protesters’ is a blanket term hiding who people really are, why they’re there, what they do, and how they contribute to society.

The Way of Love can be thankless (may even mean being subjected to abuse). Having shared publicly about their experience the article reports ‘Gerbasi and her associate rector have received threatening, obscene emails. One said that “my criticism of President Trump is akin to the crucifixion of Jesus,” she said.’

[Link] … from Episcopal News Service

After ‘sickening and haunting’ encounter with police in DC, priest and seminarian turn focus back to racial justice

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Text and photo by Liz; Exploring Colour (2020)