Hope

There is a whole lot of pain in the world right now. And there are a great many voices speaking into that pain. It is most likely that my voice will just be one more amongst the millions adding to the noise. I am okay with that. It is not my hope to be the loudest voice, but rather to be a glimmer of love and hope amidst the overwhelming darkness and hatred we are seeing today.

For about an hour this morning I watched the live feed of the rally before the Women's March on Washington. Because it was on Facebook, I also got to see the live feed of comments. For most of the time I watched, I literally sat in tears. I was watching a war between love and hatred, justice and oppression, play out before my eyes.

This is not a war between men and women, democrats and republicans, or white people and everyone else. I recognize that there is an inequality of power and rights. I may be naive and idealistic and have no real understanding of just how deep the cracks in the system run. You may not agree that anything is wrong, But whether we are fighting for or against change, if the weapon we use is hate, we are wrong. As soon as we begin to take away the value of another person because of who she is or what he has done, we are wrong.

What is especially disheartening is the response of so many in the name of God. Do you know what you are saying when you call another person "trash" or "useless" or "idiot" or any of those other terrible things that are being thrown around? That person is God's baby. When we are friends of God, we will not call his children "garbage" or say that they were better of dead. Can you imagine going to a friend's house and saying that to her face about her two-year-old who pulled your hair?

I am certainly not trying to minimize the pain and injustice that some people cause. It is ugly and downright evil much of the time. And I certainly do not mean that we ought to sit back and watch it play out as it will. But we do need to remember whose children we are, The Teacher we follow did not call down curses on the people who murdered him but rather said, "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing."

So please, love people today. Spewing hatred, criticism, negativity, and conflict only adds to the chaos. If we are going to spread the Kingdom of God on the earth, we cannot be so lazy and selfish as to look just like the rest of the world. We carry hope within us. Hope that the world will not always look like this. Hope that even the worst people and worst situations can be saved. Hope that love will win and light will drive out the darkness. Let's be people of hope.