Engaging Leaders



Please do not edit in anyway. Permission is granted to ATM participants to use and publish as is with credit to Okokon as noted. I CAN’T BREATHE!In honor of black lives and in memory of George Floyd, murdered by the policeI Can’t Breathe!...Have you not heard?Have you not watched it on TV?Have you not seen?Have you not heard it on the radio?Have you not read it in the papers?We are being ravaged by the policeWe are being ravaged by the law enforcement systemWe are being ravaged by the prison system?We are being ravaged by the legal systemWe are being ravaged by the economic systemWe are being ravaged by the governmentWe are pushed on every side?Our necks have been stepped on and brokenOur bodies have been ravaged by bulletsOur blood has marked the streetsLife has been squeezed out of usWe have been handled like objectsWho can deliver us from this evil?From the evil that keeps sweeping through our land?Where are the white folks?Where are the brown folks?Where are the black folks?Where are the red folks?Where are the mothers?Where are the fathers?Where are the elders?Where are the women?Where are the men?Where are the citizens?Where are the politicians?Our hearts are flooded with loss, pain, griefOur eyes are shut with tears of bloodOur bodies are weakOur hope goneWho can deliver us?Thank God almighty we are a peopleWe are powered by our ancestors?We are resilientWe are hopefulWe are peacefulWe are lovingWe are sadWe are madWe will keep marchingWe will keep speaking?Our lives matterWe matter to GodWe matter to the universeWe matter to natureThat’s all that mattersYou may not believe itYou may not act like it’s trueThat is our truthTruth is truthTruth never changesOpen wide your earsOpen wide your eyesOpen wide your heartsOpen wide your mindsI hope you learn to feel againI hope you act when it mattersI hope you speak when it mattersYou are hurting meMy neck is broken?My neck hurtsI can’t breathe!Were my last words.Written by Okokon Udo, PhDOn the occasion of the death of George Floyd?And, In honor of Black LivesMay 27, 2020“In our time we have been uprooted from ourformer homeland, adrift in a mobile and changingsociety. We are lonely in crowds who seem not tocare, pushed to and fro by machines to serve and beserved, until we too become mechanical and act like machines. We meet the other persons as strangers,but mostly by external contacts, passing by or bouncing away as if we were rubber balls. We are hollow menand women who do not know the inner life of other persons, and so we give attention mainly to the external appearance. Estranged from them or used by them, we are empty within ourselves, lost souls for whom no one seems to care. The need has never been so urgent for someone to care. How can a pastor (provider) care for his/her people in such a world?”Where we are now in Pastoral Care, - Christian Advocate,September 23, 1965, p.7. ................
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