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VOL. 13, NO. 21

Arson spurs holy grief

By Melissa Lauber UMCOnnection staff

On Oct. 16, the Rev. Willie Armstrong, a former United Methodist pastor, brought dinner to the Dawson family from Eastern United Methodist Churchs food pantry in Baltimore.

Hours later the five children and their mother were gone burned to death at the hand of an arsonist who police say wanted to stop Angela Dawson from reporting the activities of drug dealers in her community.

The Rev. Connie Smith, pastor of Eastern UMC, was on the scene at 3 a.m. when five small body bags were carried from a still burning house.

They hadnt found the mother, Angela Dawson, yet, said Smith.

Armstrong, who now works as a police chaplain, served them their last supper, Smith noted. You grieve beyond grief and then have to get back to the battle. We lay the family on the altar.

The death of Angela Dawson and her five children is being reported as one of Baltimores most heinous crimes.

According to news reports, Darrell L. Brooks, 21, was charged with six counts of arson and murder.

The house had been firebombed once before, two weeks before the fatal blaze, allegedly by drug dealers.

Dawson, 36, and her children, twins Keith and Kevin Dawson, 8; Carnell Dawson Jr., 10; Juan Ortiz, 12; and LaWanda Ortiz, 14, died in the fire. The childrens father, Carnell Dawson Sr. leapt from a second-story window. He spent a week in the hospital and died Oct. 23.

I dont know if anything has so caught my heart and my soul, said Bishop Felton Edwin May, who has focused significant efforts on addressing drugs and violence in the city.

In a prayer vigil outside the charred remains of the Dawson home on the corner of Preston and Eden streets Bishop May addressed the drug dealers he claimed were present in the crowd. If you have to make a decision between murdering little children and taking my life take my life. No child should be forced to live in fear of his or her life being taken, he said.

May spoke before several hundred people who gathered Oct. 20 in what the bishop called an open air cathedral. At his urging, they joined hands in small groups, and each person prayed aloud. Many of the people also carried large signs that read Thou Shalt Not Kill. Several times during the 30-minute vigil the crowd chanted these words from Exodus 20:13.

The time has come for us not to simply say those words, but to live them, to put our lives on the line, Bishop May said.

The bishop outlined the epidemic problems facing the city, citing poverty, deprivation, drug addiction, unemployment and poor health care. These are weapons of mass destruction that politicians must deal with, he said. Its not 6,000 miles away in Baghdad. Its right here in downtown Baltimore.

The Rev. Clarence Davis of Christ UMC in Baltimore, raised the specter of violence that was sweeping the region. There is a sniper on the beltway and alarm is justifiably raised, he said. But murder goes on in our city every day. Our city cries.

According to Smith, the area between her church and the Dawson home is an open air drug market, in operation 24 hours a day. Children walk to and from school amid drug dealers on ground littered with drug paraphernalia, she said.

Sometimes hopelessness seems like all there is, Smith said. But in those instances you just have to lean on those with hearts that care. You worry together, cry together and endure whatever needs to be endured.

However, in her ministry, Smith has learned that children in the community look differently upon those who dare to care.

We can impact these young people, she said. God will add the super to our natural effort.

Religious leaders are hoping that the murder of the Dawson children and their parents will make a difference.

We are drawing a line in the sand. It wont be enough to stand here today, if were not standing here next week, said Baltimore-Washington Conference Associate Council Director Timothy Warner at the prayer vigil.

But amid the call for action the sadness remains. Its a feeling Bishop May has called holy grief not merely sorrow, but also the expression of love, compassion and active concern for the sacred lives of human beings as an affirmation of our faith and obedience to God.