A few weeks ago my Frost Advisory titled, “We’ll never have more in common,” I cited the coronavirus pandemic as the basis for sharing that we’ll never have more in common than now with the people tuning to your station for the very first time.

Well, I was wrong.

The murder of a black man by a white policeman last month in Minneapolis has set off a series of protests and marches that still occupy many hours of cable TV news. My brilliant friend Brian Yeager at KTSY in Boise shared a unique perspective with his listeners:

“Never in my lifetime have I seen the country more UNITED on race than now. Something has happened and we finally all are outraged at the evil of racism. We’ve seen a sliver of what many people experience just because their skin is a different color and we are united that this must not continue.

We have never been more united as we see police joining with protestors in a sign of solidarity. All races are condemning this horrific treatment of our brothers and sisters whose beautiful skin has been seen as a curse.

We are united in facing a virus. We are united in honoring the image of God in every human.”

More now than just a few weeks ago, we have more in common with those that are tuning to your station for the very first time. Even those who don’t believe in God sense that this is not who we are supposed to be.

We’re all united in our search for Hope.

“I see our response to violence as the phantom pain of the human soul… This ideal that we are supposed to forgive and not live in bitterness, that we’re supposed to love and not hate, this ideal that we can be better than this. I’m convinced that this is the human spirit remembering what is supposed to be like to be human. Maybe that’s why Jesus came. He came to restore our humanity. And maybe that’s why the human story is so troubling to us. Every time we experience an act of violence we all know this is not who we are supposed to be, this is not what it means to be human, and our souls long to be human again.”

Erwin McManus