There is a fog over the Charles River. While the sun is trying to burn through the mist, the fog is heavy and solid.
I wonder if this is what it is like for those families affected by another school shooting. The fog of disbelief and anger so heavy; the gut-deep sadness and nausea overwhelming. Everything a blur of loss and tragedy.
Where is the sun in that fog?While most of the country was focusing on chocolate, roses, and chalk hearts with stupid sayings, a community was facing a nightmare of violence.
This is America's true brand of terrorism, but we clothe it in politics instead of common sense and being on the same side - the side of life, the side of protection, the side of making hard choices.
I am more and more convinced that the "individual rights" that are so highly valued in our culture are dangerous. Both my intuition and my experience tells me what is really important is community and caring for others; what is really important is giving up my rights and my right to be right for the sake of others.
But no matter what I think, there are people who are hurting and planning funerals. Young life is extinguished and parents and friends are hurting. They are broken in their grief, and even though I don't know them, I must stand with them.
I stand with them as one who mourns a broken world and longs for redemption. I stand with them as one who cries for the moms who will no longer hold their children; the moms and dads who would beg for just one more hug, one more 'I love you.' I stand with them as one who prays that the sun's light will penetrate the fog, a glimpse of God in the midst of a fog of tragedy.
Our world is not as it should be. And though we see beautiful glimpses of redemption that startle and amaze us, we still face all that is part of this broken world.
So I stand as one broken - broken by sorrow of death and loss, by pain, by the weight of difficult relationships. And in the silence of the broken I know God is near.
If you are weary of sorrow and pain, if you are face to face with tragedy and death, with the broken bones of a weary world, know that you are welcomed into the arms of God.*
