Death is in the house. My ancestors sang it like this:

‘Soon one morning, death come creepin’ in my room,
‘Soon one morning, death come creepin’ in my room,
‘Soon one morning, death come creepin’ in my room.

That morning is today. And yesterday. And tomorrow. Death is in the house. So it is time to call for the wailing women to weep for us.

In the ancient Near East there was a profession that was passed down from woman to woman, from neighbor-woman to girlfriend. The initiates or trainees were called ‘daughters’ and the guild directors were called ‘mothers,’ just as the disciples of prophets were called their children. It was the mourner’s guild, called ‘the keening or weeping women’ in Jeremiah. They were trained and paid to perform the public ritual of funerals; they were funeral directors and grief counselors. These women walked with the body, wept and wailed with the family and sang and chanted hymns, psalms and laments composed for the occasion. They created space and community for the family and friends to grieve without embarrassment, and never be alone. Some guilds included musicians, both male and female, but the professional mourners were usually women.

I’ve been watching (predominantly Christian) folk call for men and Christian men to take to the streets in Baltimore and end/prevent the looting. I’ve heard folk say that only a man can tell another man how to be a man. While our cites are on fire and our children are being slaughtered I want to be charitable to those in my community who are surely in as much pain as I am. So I am going to allow for the possibility that they did not mean to slight all the women, mothers, godmothers, play mothers, grandmothers, church mothers sisters and aunties who have been raising boys and men and women and girls with and without help. I’m just going to sit down and weep at the thought I might have to justify why I’m out in the streets that black women are dying in too.

I’ll be honest. I don’t know what to do or what I can do to keep the police from shooting, strangling, suffocating and now, severing our spines in vehicular lynchings. I’m tired of praying. I feel like screaming. So that is what I will do. I know I’m not alone. I turn to the scriptures and see God says, “Call for the wailing women.”

Jeremiah 9:17 So says the SOVEREIGN of Warriors:
Reason within yourselves,
and call for the keening women to come;
send for the wise, skilled women to come;
18 let them quickly raise a wailing over us,
so that our eyes may run down with tears,
and our eyelids flow with water.
19 For a sound of wailing is heard from Zion:
“How we are ruined! We are completely ashamed,
because we have forsaken the land,
because they have cast down our dwellings.”
20 Hear, O women, the word of the HOLY ONE,
and let your ears receive the word of God’s mouth;
teach to your daughters a wailing,
and each woman her neighbor-woman a keening:
21 “Death has come up into our windows,
it has entered our palaces,
to cut off the children from the streets
and the young women and young men from the squares.”

In this text, the sound of weeping and wailing breaks forth from Zion, the heart of God’s home in Jerusalem. Yerushalayim, the city of peace has been torn to pieces. The first stanza of the funeral hymn composed by God in Jeremiah speaks of the shame of being run out of the Promised Land that God provided. For when their tabernacles were overthrown, they had to leave, because there was nothing left for them there anymore. Even God lost the tabernacle of the Temple. For some the lost tabernacle was that of the sanctity of their bodies; many were raped, tortured and killed. For others the tabernacles lost were the sacred spaces of their God-given homes. Violence and warfare have always affected women in a particularly intimate manner.

Professionals are called to lament on behalf of the people of Jerusalem. In Jeremiah, God tells the people to consider among the weeping women and to select the wisest. In ancient Israelite tradition, wisdom was head knowledge, heart knowledge and hand knowledge. Skilled theologians, skilled poets and skilled artisans are all wise in this understanding. In Ezekiel, the prophet will call the women of the ancient African nation of Nubia to join in the lament and to weep for all of their people.

The United States were never intended to be a land of promise for African Americans. We survived and sometimes we thrive in spite of all the death-dealing structures and strictures in the law and all the social and economic structures founded on and steeped in white supremacy. There have been moments of incredible jubilation and long seasons of grief. It is indeed a time to organize and protest, interrupt and inconvenience and give voice to holy rage. It is also time to lament, weep, wail, scream and keen our grief. Voices of lamentation are being raised all across our nation and world from Nepal to Baltimore. Let me add my voice to them: We call your names. Ashé.

The book of Exodus records the journey from slavery to freedom beginning with he words v’elleh shemoth, “these are the names…” These are the names of our dead. These are only some of the names. (Courtesy of Abagond.)

2015: Jamar Clark (Minneapolis, MN)
2015: India Kager (Virginia Beach, VA)
2015: Christian Taylor (Arlington, TX)
2015: Sam Dubose (Cincinnati, OH)
2015: Sandra Bland (Prairie View, TX)
2015: Icarus Randolph (Witchita, KS)
2015: Freddie Gray (Baltimore, MD)
2015: Walter Scott (North Charleston, SC)
2015: Tony Robinson (Madison, WI)
2015: Anthony Hill (Chamblee, GA)
2014: Akai Gurley (New York, NY)
2014: Tamir Rice (Cleveland, OH)
2014: Victor White III (Iberia Parish, LA)
2014: Dante Parker (San Bernardino County, CA)
2014: Ezell Ford (Los Angeles, CA)
2014: Michael Brown (Ferguson, MO)
2014: Tyree Woodson (Baltimore, MD)
2014: John Crawford III (Beavercreek, OH)
2014: Eric Garner (New York, NY)
2014: Yvette Smith (Bastrop, TX)
2014: Donitre Hamilton (Milwaukee, WI)
2014: Jordan Baker (Houston, TX)
2013: Barrington Williams (New York, NY)
2013: Carlos Alcis (New York, NY)
2013: Deion Fludd (New York, NY)
2013: Jonathan Ferrell (Bradfield Farms, NC)
2013: Kimani Gray (New York, NY)
2013: Kyam Livingstone (New York, NY)
2013: Larry Eugene Jackson, Jr. (Austin, TX)
2013: Miriam Carey (Washington, DC)
2013: Tyrone West (Baltimore, MD)
2012: Chavis Carter (Jonesboro, AR)
2012: Dante Price (Dayton, OH)
2012: Duane Brown (New York, NY)
2012: Ervin Jefferson (Atlanta, GA)
2012: Jersey Green (Aurora, IL)
2012: Johnnnie Kamahi Warren (Dotham, AL)
2012: Justin Slipp (New Orleans, LA)
2012: Kendrec McDade (Pasadena, CA)
2012: Malissa Williams (Cleveland, OH)
2012: Nehemiah Dillard (Gainesville, FL)
2012: Ramarley Graham (New York, NY)
2012: Raymond Allen (Galveston, TX)
2012: Rekia Boyd (Chicago, IL)
2012: Reynaldo Cuevas (New York, NY)
2012: Robert Dumas Jr (Cleveland, OH)
2012: Sgt. Manuel Loggins Jr (Orange County, CA)
2012: Shantel Davis (New York, NY)
2012: Sharmel Edwards (Las Vegas, NV)
2012: Shereese Francis (New York, NY)
2012: Tamon Robinson (New York, NY)
2012: Timothy Russell (Cleveland, OH)
2012: Wendell Allen (New Orleans, LA)
2011: Alonzo Ashley (Denver, CO)
2011: Jimmell Cannon (Chicago, IL)
2011: Kenneth Chamberlain (White Plains, NY)
2011: Kenneth Harding (San Francisco, CA)
2011: Raheim Brown (Oakland, CA)
2011: Reginald Doucet (Los Angeles, CA)
2010: Aaron Campbell (Portland, OR)
2010: Aiyana Jones (Detroit, MI)
2010: Danroy Henry (Thornwood, NY)
2010: Derrick Jones (Oakland, CA)
2010: Steven Eugene Washington (Los Angeles, CA)
2009: Kiwane Carrington (Champaign, IL)
2009: Oscar Grant (Oakland, CA)
2009: Shem Walker (New York, NY)
2009: Victor Steen (Pensacola, FL)
2008: Tarika Wilson (Lima, OH)
2007: DeAunta Terrel Farrow (West Memphis, AR)
2006: Sean Bell (New York, NY)
2005: Henry Glover (New Orleans, LA)
2005: James Brisette (New Orleans, LA)
2005: Ronald Madison (New Orleans, LA)
2004: Timothy Stansbury (New York, NY)
2003: Alberta Spruill (New York, NY)
2003: Orlando Barlow (Las Vegas, NV)
2003: Ousmane Zongo (New York, NY)
2003: Michael Ellerbe (Uniontown, PA)
2001: Timothy Thomas (Cincinnati, OH)
2000: Earl Murray (Dellwood, MO)
2000: Malcolm Ferguson (New York, NY)
2000: Patrick Dorismond (New York, NY)
2000: Prince Jones (Fairfax County, VA)
2000: Ronald Beasley (Dellwood, MO)
1999: Amadou Diallo (New York, NY)
1994: Nicholas Heyward Jr. (New York, NY)
1992: Malice Green (Detroit, MI)
1985: Edmund Perry (New York, NY)
1984: Eleanor Bumpurs (New York, NY)
1983: Michael Stewart (New York, NY)
1981: Ron Settles (Signal Hill, CA)
1979: Eula Love (Los Angeles, CA)
1969: Mark Clark (Chicago, IL)
1969: Fred Hampton (Chicago, IL)
1964: James Powell (New York, NY)

This is a wailing; and it shall be wailed.
The women of the world shall wail it.
Over Nubia and all its nations they shall wail it,
says the SOVEREIGN God. (Ezekiel 32:16)

What shall we do when death is in the house? Lament. Even Jesus said: “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.” Cry to heaven, weep and wail.

Daughters of Nubia, we need to weep for ourselves; we need to weep for our daughters; we need to weep for our sons. We need to weep for our cities. We need to weep for our leaders. We need to weep for our preachers. We need to weep for our teachers. We need to weep for our cities. We need to weep for our sanctuaries. We need to weep for our nation. We need to weep for all nations. We need to weep for the earth. Death is in the house.

Daughters of Nubia, we need to weep for politicians and police. We need to weep for those who perpetuate the culture of violence and retaliation, and those who fall prey to it. We need to weep for unrepentant racists. We need to weep for those who cannot see our beautiful bodies as being created in the image of God. We need to weep with rage and determination.

We need to weep for Baltimore and Ferguson and New York. We need to weep for Nigeria and Nepal and Palestine and Pakistan. Death is in the house.

Weep. Wail. Cry. Scream. And may the God who hears, hear and heal and help us.