Dear Friends,

Do not forget that this Sunday is our monthly business meeting.  I really don’t have a Friday with Friends upbeat text to send to you today.  It’s just been a tough week.  But being active with others is one of the answers to what we can do.  We can pray and we can find a group that is working for justice.  That’s a couple of things we can do. 

Sincerely,

Leigh

Musings

A tiny hand reaches out from the rubble, too weak from malnutrition to survive the assault to its body’s systems. The last sound it hears is an American rocket hitting the ground near where his school used to be. Another child’s hand still grasps the prayer book in terror hoping that the sound of gunshots will stop blasting through her memory.  It seems so real still. Her mother rocks her reassuring her that she will still be alive when it stops.  She thought she was safe.  She was at school. They are too young to know what death truly is, yet it is all around in acts of violence, making itself familiar in a much too frequent way. A mother cries out for her child as they pull her baby from her arms.  She is illegally in the United States, and they want more and more and more, so she must be pushed out by their greed.  Edged out. No one left to care for the child.  How do you talk about God in a world where this is reality?  To say anything is to talk too simplistically to give this time its proper respect and gravity. What is the proper respect?  How do we show it? In our treatment of the innocent?  A tiny hand reaches.  We are only as good as the acts that show in our treatment of these children.  They are dependent on us to make choices for their betterment. Why are we letting them down?  Are we capable of nurturing the next generation?  It doesn’t look like it.  It doesn’t feel like it. It feels so much like an onslaught. On August 23 a task force said it was okay for the National Guard who have taken over the policing of DC carry rifles.  Somewhere in DC a child is looking out of a window with fear, wanting to feel power again. Are there easy answers?  Is it too complicated? A truck with a three-ton roller paints over the Black Lives Matter banner on the street.  How little a child must feel in comparison. An indigenous war was lost at a field in Arizona, and there is a push to take its history away, because it isn’t nice to remember why there is fear and lack of trust with the government.  On a day like today, I want to write something that answers some of this in some substantial way.

But all I can say is, “We need you to remember you are sacred in the midst of all that is unholy.”  It is trite in face of these atrocities to say “Be the Light.”  How can we respond in a way that makes a difference? That changes the systems that have made all of this violence part of our lives? A rosary hangs on a cross in front of the church where the children were eviscerated. Does it make a difference?  Can one kind thought or one kind act be all we can do? If I say, “Don’t let it get to you,” what am I advocating for?  A hardened heart?  

No, we should cry and still do something, something that will make a difference in the life of one child somewhere.  Be intentional.  Join a movement. Speak truth no matter what. Find the courage to be fully present in the middle of this, and find a way to not be part of the violence. We might not be able to do that much if we do it alone, but together we have a chance.  Join in.  You are needed.