Prayers of the Floyd Family
The Floyd family, and the events of this week have filled my mind with beautiful questions about the nature of prayer. I watched many different family members react to the verdict, and every one of them spoke about prayer. George’s brother, Philonese was described as sitting in the courtroom throughout the entire trial “in prayer.” Another brother, Terrence said: “I believe because of prayer, we got the verdict we wanted.” Speaking about prayer, a cousin of George’s said that over the last year the family was flooded by so much love coming their way that she doesn’t know whether she will see such love again in her lifetime. These are three very different attitudes toward prayer, each of which invites contemplation on what we mean when we use the word.
Of all of the powerful moments, though, perhaps the strongest was watching the Floyd family pray together, led by Reverend Sharpton. Before the words emerged, the Reverend had the family and close friends link arms, as if to say prayer is a physical uniting of people. It begins in the body, and continues so long as the bodies are united, so long as our bodies are praying. The family then lowered their heads, and remained in that position until the prayer was completed. One of the lines of prayer Sharpton spoke was also of a physical nature:
“We believe in a god who can even get through the cracks in a jury room.”
