With the Help of our Ancestors We Can Heal and Say “We CAN Breathe!

by the Rev. Morrice Coverson Pastor, Church of the Spirit and President/Founder, Institute for Positive Living
by the Rev. Morrice Coverson Pastor, Church of the Spirit and President/Founder, Institute for Positive Living

With the Help of our Ancestors We Can Heal and Say “We CAN Breathe!

BY REV. MORRICE COVERSONPastor, Church of the Spirit and President/Founder, Institute for Positive Living

EDITORIAL

With the Help of our Ancestors We Can Heal and Say “We CAN Breathe!”

by the Rev. Morrice Coverson

Pastor, Church of the Spirit and President/Founder, Institute for Positive Living

BlackLivesMatter. This is not just about the healing of the United States, but also the healing of the world.

What we are experiencing now, is rooted in our past and will affect our future. Because our present experience is rooted in the past, we must think about the role of our ancestors, not only in the past, but the role they are playing now as they try to help with the healing.

I can hear our ancestors, those people who have passed on many years ago. I can hear them saying, “I cannot breathe!” And I hear not only those in slavery. I hear those who fled to the north out of slavery. I can hear them saying, “I cannot breathe!” I can hear our ancestors who stayed in the south and lived during Jim Crow saying, “I cannot breathe!” And I can hear those who migrated north hoping for a better life saying, “I cannot breathe!”

And I can hear those who walked with Dr. Martin Luther King during the Civil Rights Movement (some still living, some in the Spirit World). I hear them repeating Dr. King’s words: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal’… I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” But I can also hear them say, “I cannot breathe!”

And today, I hear too many of my Black brothers and sisters saying, “I cannot breathe!” In truth, we in the Black community were not ever able to breathe.

That’s why #BlackLivesMatter is important. This does not negate the fact that all lives matter. It puts the spotlight on the fact that America is still infected with the Black Lives Don’t Matter virus that destroyed so many of our ancestors during slavery and Jim Crow. Yes! #BlackLivesMatter puts the spotlight on the fact that this Black Lives Don’t Matter virus is still infecting us today.

And it is not only here in America. #BlackLivesMatter is putting the spotlight on people of color in countries around the world. They are raising their voices and joining us in America, saying, “I cannot breathe!”

And we are all saying, “Let us breathe!”

COVID-19 is a pandemic of the body. The Black Lives Don’t Matter virus is a pandemic of the spirit. It is a virus that is destroying the spirits of the victims and the victimizers.

It is time that all human beings are able to breathe. “Let us breathe!”

BlackLivesMatter is a tool that can help us realize that we are collectively one. By joining together in this movement, we are coming together to say, “Let us breathe!”

I hear the ancestors saying, “Now is the time! It is time for the separatism that has been here since we were brought here as unpaid workers and slaves to cease. It is time for the separatism that caused lynchings during Jim Crow to go unpunished and race massacres like the one that destroyed the Black Wall Street district in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921 to be forgotten, to cease.

It is time for us to come together collectively as one and say ‘Let us breathe!’ It is time for us to come together and say:

‘Let us breathe!’

‘Let us breathe!’

‘Let us breathe!’

And continue to say this until each one of us can say, ‘I CAN breathe!’

And all of us together can say, “We CAN breathe!’”

Our ancestors hold no animosity for the transgressions of the past, which saw the European man refusing to understand and recognize the value of others. I hold no animosity.

Instead, I heed their counsel. For I know, that with the help of our ancestors in spirit, we can find the healing that will help us all come together and say, “We CAN breathe!”

It is with this hope and knowledge that the ancestors guide us. They tell us that NOW is the time to make changes that are good. For every young person that walks in protest, there is an ancestor who walks with them, an invisible friend protecting and guiding them.

Those who have caused havoc in our communities were not listening to the beat of the ancestors, but to the rage that is inside of them. Even though in America there have been 400 years of racism and 400 years of African Americans being killed, the ancestors do not condone the destroying of the community. Instead they say that it is time for this ugly chapter of American history to be over.

“It is over!” they say. “Let us recognize that we are all one! Let us turn ‘I cannot breathe’ into ‘I CAN breathe!’ Let us turn ‘We cannot breathe!’ into ‘We CAN breathe!”

The ancestors know that the journey to welcoming African Americans to sit as equals at the table; to have a voice at that table, has been a long one. And they know that the journey is not done. They want us to know that they are with us every step of the way. They are whispering to our young people: “Keep going! Demonstrate, but don’t destroy!”

George Floyd is one of the ancestors now. His death on earth created a movement that has the momentum to erase the stain of racism and write a new story, With the help of George Floyd and all the ancestors and the efforts of those who march for #BlackLivesMatter and do the hard work, we will march together into a society, a country, and a world, where each individual can say, “I CAN breathe!” and all of us can say “We CAN breathe!”

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