Merseyside is in England.
[Anthony Walker was Black]
That those who murdered him happened to be white is immaterial to the matter at hand.
What matters is that they were thoroughly wicked.
They did a nastily wicked thing.
They murdered Anthony Walker.
As the news noted, "Mr. Walker's girlfriend and cousin saw a man carrying an axe bludgeon him, and ran to get help. When they returned minutes later they found him slumped on the ground with massive head injuries. The axe was embedded in his skull…"
And so it goes.
But please be a little bit patient with me as I try to show how this matter should be of some importance to people like us who live in this place in this dread time of suicide, child abuse, maiming and murder.
Here take note that, I am pretty certain that I must be among the few Bahamians alive [or dead] who know anything about how it came to be that Anthony Walker found himself one fine day quite dead.
That he did so when an ice axe was planted in his head is today of little to no concern to Bahamians who are dealing with their own dead kinsmen, most of them ruined, maimed and sometimes murdered by their fellow-Bahamians.
But yet I remember Anthony Walker, the story about the ice-axe and some of what happened in the aftermath of the trial that saw two men brought to justice for the parts they played in bringing Death to the attention of a young black man who was in that dread moment poised on the cusp of manhood, a promising career and a future.
An ice-axe wielded by a thug quickly and decisively brought an end to the future.
When I read out what had happened, I was sad.
When I read about the verdict, I was relieved.
And for sure, when I read of how Anthony Walker’s mother had – in Christian love – forgiven her son’s murderers, I was confirmed in my faith.
And I was happy to know that this good woman understood the power that is inherent in the living word of God – and how we who so loudly profess the risen Christ as Lord and Savior are called to forgive as we too search for the same.
Indeed, when I read the story concerning Anthony Walker’s rendezvous with Destiny, I was constrained to unburden myself of a burden I carried in that bloody moment.
I was so hurt by the news concerning that lad that I sent out a message – as if to no one and yet to everyone who had ears to hear and eyes to see.
The word then was to the effect that, My name is felix bethel i am a Bahamian/ i am a black man/ and i am a Christian/ may god have mercy on the brutes who killed that boy; and may he show them the mercy they did not show young walker/ lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.
In a similar vein, someone named Petra noted that, Evil will never defeat God's love for His children. Anthony will know now the power of the Almighty. Our love for him and Stephen will transcend anything that happened here. God will restore both Stephen and Anthony and others who are in God's light forever. Anthony's killers will never change that as they will live in darkness!
And now – wonder of wonders – I come to the sweet part of today’s work on this blessed Thursday.
The word I am hearing goes as follows – But Anthony’s mother, a devout Evangelical Christian, has shown me an example that I feel shows the discipleship of a true Christian.
Gee Walker saw Anthony in hospital with the axe sticking out of her sons head. The images will probably resonate forever. She is the mother of 6 and has lost a son who she said would not harm a fly and had great ambitions to be a lawyer when he grew up.
Gee Walker said in answer to the question "Do you hate Barton and Taylor?
Gee: I can’t hate. I brought up my children in this church to love. I teach them to love, to respect themselves, and respect others. We’re a huggy family and they go out and portray that same image. We’re a forgiving family and it extended to outside, so it wasn’t hard to forgive because we don’t just preach it, we practise it. It is a life sentence. What does bitterness do? It eats you up inside, it’s like a cancer. We don’t want to serve a life sentence with those people.
Has your faith been tested by Anthony’s death?
Gee: (Laughs) Has my faith been tested? Lord, yes. My name’s Gee, not Jesus! It’s been hard, so hard, but I have to follow what the Lord teaches. It is easy to say those things, but when it is you who must do them, it is hard.
I hope we can all learn from people like Gee Walker and be peacemakers. I hope that Anthony’s murders also learn from her example.
And for sure, I hope that some of our people – particularly some of our Church-folk- could think and behave likewise.
Indeed, as the blood-tide rises in our land, more and more Bahamians are drowning in a sea roiled and wracked by the cries of those who have perished and those who live on and mourn.
What I’m trying to say is that more and more Bahamians are succumbing to the mystery of evil. As they do so, some are killing themselves. Others are killing others.
Sadder still happens to be the fact that some of the more demented ones in this troubled land are wont – in these dread times – to turn their evil eyes and intentions on their own flesh and blood children.
In other words, this once-good land that is ours is being bloodied and battered by home-grown thugs – men and women, boys and girls alike – who are cavorting with evil incarnate.
This is so dreadfully sad.
Sadder still is the fact that as the blood-red tide surges in some of our nation’s clerics are seemingly no better than the thugs against whom they rail and rant.
Please let me explain.
As everyone in the know knows, there are pastors, preachers and a motley assortment of other religious who would kill those who kill.
Indeed, there is one senior cleric who makes the news at will whenever he wishes to be unburdened of his burdened view that rapists should – on conviction – be castrated.
Interestingly, it is apparently of no bother to this bothered brother that men like him who are widely known [and respected by many] as maestros in the world of sweet-hearting are [according to the Word in the Book] guilty of commandment breaking.
Evidently, this little detail is to be put safely away in a never-never kind of place in this terrifyingly hypocritical paradise-place we call home.
Things need not remain this way.
I am absolutely convinced that those who lead can come into possession of a better way of looking at things; that they can and should understand the power and truth inherent in the promise that Blessed are the peacemakers.
And for sure, I am absolutely certain that once the scales are removed from their sin-scarred eyes they would come to understand that mercy matters.
