When I read the opening verses of Psalm 69 today, I thought about a sculpture and adjacent poem on the grounds of the National Museum for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. This memorial, established by the Equal Justice Initiative, acknowledges the victims of racial terror and lynchings in the United States.
I’m sitting with these words from the poem by Elizabeth Alexander, in conversation with Psalm 69, on this day of witness to the resurrection for John Lewis:
“call out each name to sanctify this place...
Here you endure and are luminous.
You are not lost to us.
The wind carries sorrows, sighs, and shouts.”
Psalm 69
Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep
waters, and the flood sweeps over me.
I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim
with waiting for my God.
