As violence over the death of George Floyd continues to sweep across America, numerous government officials, media pundits, and other commentators have weighed  in.  All reject the mayhem, and most, in some way, affirm the rightness of the protestors' anger.  Almost uniformly, they say that, well, they understand the reasons for the rage.
     Unless one is African-American, however, she cannot really understand the experience of being, even after over one hundred and fifty years since Abraham Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation, socially, economically, and culturally disenfranchised.  Such shoes can only really be worn by those who own them.  Not to say that an outsider cannot support or sympathize, just that, unlike being poor, for instance, being a person of color is an entirely different type of cultural experience.  It's hard to "walk a mile" in another's shoes if those shoes are shoes that one will never be able to wear.
     I weep over George Floyd's passing; I tremble at the racial animosity in America.  I feel profoundly sorry for those who feel so unwelcome in their own country.  But I'm white.  I don't normally encounter high levels of racism; I do not regularly experience being the target of focused and intentional social hatred.  I can't possibly know what that is like.
     It may seem trivial, it may seem trite, but I believe, with Martin Luther King, Jr., that, as he once observed, the arc of the universe bends toward justice.  And like King, I don't believe this only because of the power of social movements, though I endorse them strongly.  I ultimately believe this because I believe that, when all is said and done, we live in a world created, in some fashion, by a loving and personal God.