Vigil Against Violence

Well, I tried. I tried to promote attendance by the not black community, one fellow blogger, Lee showed up. This made me happy but I wish more folks from the nb (not black) liberal community had come. Next time.
The vigil was wonderful. People were generous and kind, stories were told of people's struggles with violence and drugs.
Pastor Jeffrey gave a magnificent talk about identity. I do not remember all the words, but the essence was that identity lies at the core of preventing violence. He told us many things he is not .. he is not the pastor, the father, the husband, the dark skinned black, the American ... none of these by itself or even in combination can define his identity. Instead, he talked of identity in the sense of an essential property each of us have. He talked about the pride in that identity being stolen by slavery or oppression, ... I will see if he wrote out the speech and post it here.
My photos are here as a slideshow.
The dilemma I see is that this extraordinary man is not being seen and heard by a wider community. Jeffrey is a pastor . As an atheist and as a Jew, I fear that his message is so linked to Jesus that it loses the very universality implicit in Christianity. It seems to me that this is a sad limitation because his ideas should be made available to more people. I wonder how it was that Gandhi and King transcended their religions?
Let me tell a Bob Jeffrey story. Some years ago he spoke at out synagogue. He began the talk with an anecdote. about visiting the Jewish Family and Child Service. He was there as part of the African-American-Jewish Coalition's efforts to seek synergies between the two communities' resources. As he sat in the waiting room, Jeffrey began to realize he was the only affluent person in the room. Most of the others were there for help with some welfare problem. ..that is these were Jews who needed help. The pastor suddenly realized, "There are poor Jews."
I can see how this story fits into Jeffrey's concept of identity. He was confidant enough of his identity to care about others.

Jeffrey is a bhodisittava.



Essay by Robert Jeffrey
Account of his role in creating the African American Jewish Coalition