Love...

About this time last year, I sat on an uncomfortable pew in my childhood church.  My family moved from Montgomery to Birmingham in 1986.  The months and weeks run together in a child's memory but I'm pretty sure we joined the church sometime shortly after we moved.  Thus, my parents are approaching thirty years as members.

This particular Sunday morning followed the shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC.  In the middle of a prayer service, ten people were shot by a domestic terrorist.  Nine died.  The shooter later confessed to the shooting in the hopes of starting a race war.

And there I sat, a few days later, in my home church in Birmingham, AL.  A city who had endured it's own act of terrorism during an actual race war with the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church.  Four little girls died and twenty-two others injured.  Simply because of their skin color, four members of the KKK, our own domestic terrorist organization, planted 15 sticks of dynamite underneath the church.  And blew it up.

My own heart ached to see attacks simply because of skin color still happening over fifty years later.

As I sat there, in my hometown, attending my childhood church, sitting on my family pew and listening to a pastor speak from the pulpit I knew so well, I heard words of healing.  The pastor.  He condemned the attack in Charleston as evil.  Not of God.  Not of love.  Not of peace.  But done as an act of racism and cowardice.  And there in the same city responsible for the deaths of four precious little girls, the pastor loudly declared the act evil.

Evil.

I genuinely wept.  Right there in that uncomfortable pew.  No doubt, these attacks should be long over.  A thing of our dark past.  Something we talk about as a teaching tool so we do not repeat the same sins.  And yet.  It happened again.

But this time, in 2015, the Southern Baptist pastor in my childhood church spoke truth.  He boldly said what sometimes pastors and church members and regular people who aren't sure what to say don't.  He said it was evil.  

And I wept.  Because he was right.  

Early this morning, another act of terrorism occurred.  Domestic terrorism.  Again.  Meant to help cleanse the world of a group of people, not defined by skin color, but by lifestyle.  We caught the headline just as we were turning off our phones for worship.  This year, in our own church.  Comfortable, padded seats in a worship center with zero stained glass and lots of loud music.   

Only this afternoon was I able to sit down and read about the shooting.  Scan the news stories to get the updated details.  Log on to social media to see what the church leaders I admire were saying.  Read stories of loved ones waiting, praying, terrified.  Saw posts declaring the act as pure evil.  

And I wept.  Because it is evil.

My heart breaks for this world.  It breaks for the mommas, sisters, friends, co-workers, teachers, cousins, fathers, pastors and brothers suffering an immeasurable loss.  It breaks for the millions of people who will live with fear on their shoulders because if it can happen there, it can happen here.  It breaks for those of us, Christian and Muslim alike, who are sickened by the taking of human life in any manner, but especially through such horrific violence.

My heart also breaks for those who will see this as their opportunity to spew hate and lies and more evil.  My heart breaks for the inevitable political conversations, as if people can be reduced to rhetoric.  My heart breaks for the lines drawn that will divide and hurt and alienate.  My heart breaks for the images we will endure of screaming and pointing and blaming.

My heart imagines those mommas and friends and spouses holding baby pictures of their lost loved ones.  Watching videos of graduations, dance recitals, weddings.  Flipping through social media posts to read their words over and over and over again.  Laying down on their beds, wrapping up in their clothes.  Calling voice mail messages to hear their voices one more time.   

My heart feels certain there are those who know no one involved and, yet, will suffer through weeks and months of fear and anxiety and sleeplessness.  For the mothers and fathers who want to rush to their adult children's sides to offer comfort and understanding.  Mommies and daddies who will snuggle their littles tighter tonight and pray the world will look vastly different in just a few short years.  Spouses and friends will wonder where will the next attack be and what will we do if it's on us.  

And because of all of it, I simply can't muster the care to engage in any sort of political or theological or cultural conversation about this event.  

I just cannot.

Instead, I will mourn with them.  I will weep.  I will pray.  I will listen.  I will hug.  I will let this attack cleanse nothing except any fear and misunderstanding in my own heart.  I will teach my children of God, His love, His grace, His forgiveness, His pursuit of us and how we are each made in His own image.  I will honor others because God saw fit to create them and because He loves them as much as He loves each of us.  I will carefully consider my words, my actions, my heart's desires and compare them to the two commandments of Jesus:  Love the Lord my God and Love my neighbor as myself.

Oh how I wish we could go back 50 years and do better.  But we know better now.    

Jesus, come.