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| photo by Indi Samarajiva / flickr |
In these strange days it is very hard to keep our perspective. And so many of us who claim to be people of faith find ourselves not so sure about this faith business. With shootings just about everyday and the heart-breaking stories of so many whose lives have been torn up by the roots. With ramblings of hate and rage and injustice just about everyday. With immigrants scared to walk our streets and so many have forgotten that Statue of Liberty and all she stands for. And then politicians jockeying for power and so little leadership or courage from those we have elected. It all adds up to a whole lot of darkness.
Every day I pick up a little devotional book with readings from a great preacher of another day. Paul Scherer was a Lutheran preacher and has influenced me greatly through the years. In today's meditation written so many years ago, he wrote:
"The simple fact is that the cross never stayed on the hill where they put it. It marched out across the Roman Empire. It leaped on those proud standards and got itself emblazoned there. It fluttered over Europe, in dark forests, on lonely castles. And began to point the patience centuries to a better way of treating men (and women) than they had found. It brought them face to face where hate would always fail. " (Paul E. Scherer, Love Is a Spendthrift )
When Marianne Williamson, one of the Democratic candidates said during the debate that we have to remember that the greatest of these is love. That word seemed so strange and other-worldly and out of place. Wait! Wait! This love is no sloppy and sentimental word. It may just be the hardest commandment of them all. But this its our charge as Democrats and Republicans and Independents and the Indifferent. Love will span every division and smother every single hate--so let us take up the mantle that we would just as soon ignore and continue to do our parts in a divided and hurting world. Our religion keeps telling us: it works. Hmm. "Lord, I believe...help thou my unbelief..."
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| photo by Kristoffer Borsting / flickr --Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com |
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