traffic stop

I didn’t know whether to stop. I turned the corner and noticed you first, before I noticed the police cars and the flashing lights and your car crammed full of stuff. You were standing there, jeans and hoodie. Hands in pocket and hood over your head. It was cold and you did not have on a coat. I was in my warm car, and you were standing in the January cold. 

Image via SandySpeaks/YouTube

There is a long pause near the end of Sandra Bland’s first # SandySpeaks video, made in January of 2015. It lasts almost five seconds, and in that pause my calling resides. There is no other moment I identify with more solidly.

Near the end to her video, Sandy says, “It’s time for me to do God’s work…”

Then the pause comes, with a sigh in the middle.

Then, “I know everybody don’t believe in God, which is fine. But I want you to know that on Sandy Speaks, I’m gong to talk about God, because for me has truly opened my eyes and shown me that there is something out there we can do.”

Ben Lowe 4-29-2010
Early Saturday evening, three friends and I headed out to Chicago for dinner at a favorite restaurant in our old neighborhood (Pilsen).