My Soul is Troubled
By the Machinations of an Evil Empire
The Prophet Jeremiah would ask “Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?”
My soul is troubled and this is not hyperbole.
I cannot find the words to characterize what I am feeling about what is happening in America in 2025 under the presidency of Donald Trump.
The sheer hatred that lives inside of him and that seems to be his life companion is frighteningly disturbing.
And yet it is there.
And it is intense. It’s troubling.
We have lived in this nation for 400 plus years, brought here in chains and then subjected to a cruel and dehumanizing system meant to kill us a thousand times over.
I have been reading voraciously a number of articles on the Dismantling of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Programs. Today, I read where DEI has become the new word for “nigger.”
The dismantling of DEI is code for targeting Black people, for attacking our humanity and our intelligence.
That was the intention of slavery and Jim Crow.
When will this systematic abuse of violence directed against Black people stop?
When will it stop?
When will White folks in this country rise up in a communal voice and demand that this institutionalized violence against Black, Brown and Indigenous voices stop?
James Cone the powerful Black Liberation Theologian spoke these words which I find to contain a great deal of truth.
“White people have never seen their humanity in our Black faces and bodies.”
Jesus commands us to love God and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
The problem is that when Whites look through the lens of white supremacy Black folk have never been seen as the neighbor to love.
Cone concludes by saying that Whites who embrace the evil of white supremacy can inflict pain upon us and then dismiss it because they have never truly loved us.
And so I struggle today.
I struggle with the meaning of America.
I struggle with a White Christian Church that has decided to forsake Jesus and his Gospel to lie in bed with an Anti-Christ.
These questions I leave for your consideration if you are White.
Is it possible for White America and White Christians in particular to ever acknowledge the harm that you have done to Black, Brown and Indigenous people?
Is it possible for White America and White Christians to come to terms with the violence they have done to their own souls as keepers and protectors of the distorted power of white supremacy?
Is it possible that White America and White Christians in particular will ever acknowledge the deep pain that Black people have suffered and continue to suffer as a result the oppression inflicted upon us by white supremacy, and not gloss over it or dismiss it altogether?
I am wondering today in this moment of crisis are there any White people courageous enough to wrestle with these questions in a serious , meaningful and straightforward manner - to wrestle with them to such a degree that you come out on the other end as human beings that you have never been.
Black people are waiting for you to answer those questions.
Kenneth W Wheeler
Gentry, we are exhausted from all of this.
I know that we will find a way to get through but for now let’s just honor the way we feel.
You are hitting on ALL the right cylinders! We're all feeling weak in the knees and blindsided by the reality of white supremacy and hatred in todays world. We thought we were making progress....but in fact, the white church and community were hiding their true feelings. WOW! Just WOW!