A lament for Baltimore
For more than a week I’ve been reciting Habakkuk in my mind:
O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not listen?
Or cry to you ‘Violence!’
and you will not save?
Why do you make me see wrongdoing
and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.
So the law becomes slack
and justice never prevails.
These words were likely written in the 8th century BCE, but they may as well have been written just days ago in the West Baltimore neighborhood of Sandtown-Winchester.
