Dear Editor:

On July 19, President Barack Obama took on the Florida tragedy of Trayvon Martin as well as the larger reality of racism in America. His words were anguished and personal, hard, sad and courageous-the very best of the man.

Here in Maine, 12 states and 1300 miles away from Florida, it is tempting to come up with simplistic cultural explanations of the tragedy. Or, at worst, remain silent and unconsciously dismissive.

We, with Barak Obama, must-in one way or another-personally respond, enter into the oppressive and discriminating violence in our midst.

As American poet Mary Oliver asked, "Have you ever tried to enter the long black branches of other lives and tried to imagine what it feels like? She then asked the more painfully wrenching question: "Do you think this world is only an entertainment for you?" Oliver then added in her plaintive, personal way, "Only last week I went out among the thorns and said to the wild roses, 'Deny me not, but suffer my devotion. Then, all afternoon, I sat among them .... Maybe I even heard a curl of music ... hurrying from their stubbly buds, from their delicate, watery bodies.'''

In the wake of the Trayvon Martin tragedy, we would do well to take a hard look at the prejudicial violence that lives within each one of us, racism, sexism, ageism, and then, as Obama did, have a conversation about it. That's not a solution, but it is a good start.

Obama provides us with another healing direction: He invites us to enter into his personal identification with the pain and anguish of Trayvon Martin and his family: "It could have been me 35 years ago."

Further, without blaming anyone, without pedantic lecturing at us, Obama quietly invited us into a deeper awareness and understanding of the larger reality of centuries of American poverty, violence and oppression.

Obama spoke to us from his full, sad heart and soul. And it rang true: the very best of the man. One could imagine hearing far off in the distance-soft music-chords of hope and transformation from the mountain tops to the edge of the sea.

Rev. Bobsy Dudley-Thompson

Edgecomb