In the wake of violence…
Recently one of our beloved institutions of higher learning for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) denomination experienced a horrible act of violence, which shook their community to the core, not only their immediate community, but others who were alumni, and those who are connected to the students, faculty and staff of Transylvania University.
Random acts of violence seem to have a sort of power in them to completely tear your world apart. You cannot prepare yourself for them. Without any notice, your sense of security is stripped away and faith in your fellow human being is gone. What then? Even beyond the victims of violence themselves, what of those on the perimeter who now see someone they love hurting…and there is no sense that can be made of it? What about them? There are no words. There’s nowhere to turn. The easy answer would be to turn to God, turn to hope, turn to love…but is that easy? Maya Angelou says, “Hope and fear cannot occupy the same space at the same time.” But letting go of one in order to cling to the other is so very hard. Angelou advises, “Invite one to stay,” as if it were just a decision.
When you or someone you love has become the victim of a senseless, random, violent act (this is not to say some violence makes sense), how do you let go of fear? You may have walked out your door every day of your life and never once encountered harm, but suddenly, in one fateful day, all those previous experiences of normal days are gone and account for nothing. The only thing that holds true is the fact that this one particular day, you walked out into the world and things went terribly, horribly bad. Now what? Invite hope to stay and say goodbye to fear? Easier said than done.
Only those who’ve walked through tragedy and emerged on the other side can say for sure how this is accomplished, but I suspect, like other things in life, it happens one day at a time. Perhaps it is simply a decision to invite HOPE to stay and to let go of FEAR, but I think it may have to be a decision that is made every day. Just like turning to God. Nothing worthy is ever a “one and done” deal. It is always a choice: choosing to love, choosing to trust, choosing to try, choosing to live, in spite of all the reasons your head is telling you to do otherwise. Moving from fear into hope, from surviving into thriving, has to be a transition that happens in the core of your very being: that deepest point of your character where only God resides. May God add speed to anyone whose journey takes them to this deep place.
Shalom,
Tracy