There is something quite stunning about this group of men and women. I watched them walk through the candle-lit, witness-lined path at the fourth annual Remember Me walk for homicide-loss survivors, and while emotions varied from person to person, there was a stunning mark of resilience that was breathtaking on all faces. Faces covered in tears beamed with resilience. Faces covered in solemnness beamed with resilience.
And it is stunning.
I am prone to be all one thing.
All furious.
All joyful.
All hopeful.
All helpless.
But I am learning the deeply human art of being all of two things at once. I am learning to carry two emotions in their fulness at one time, refusing to let one swallow up the other. I can be enraged at injustice, arrogance and ignorance on my own part or the part of others that causes grief and pain in the world; and at the same time, I can be grateful for the peacemaking, the meekness and the thoughtful engagement on my own part or the part of others that slowly gives promise to the reality of the coming kingdom.
There is this need for the truly human women and men to stand in a space between horror and hope and refuse to lie about the former in an effort to find the latter. There is a call to stand, much like Christ, with arms outstretched in an effort to keep a tight grip on both reality and promise, knowing our hearts can hold the tension.
And these men and women––walking with photographs in hand of the husband, daughter, mother, grandbaby they had ripped from their lives in violent murder––they walk, faces shining with complete resilience and complete grief. They promise by the mere act of putting one foot in front of the other that God has placed deeply within us his own nature of being fully enraged and fully proud of all that humanity is and will one day be.
Kingdom come.
djordan
Memphis, Tennessee
most hopeful 