“Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.”– Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (From the back of St. Michael & All Angels All Saints Sunday leaflet.)
Today in church Mother Jan did not comment on the news, the bad doings in the world, the election rhetoric and shootings and terrible comments in on-line forums. She knows we are weary and sad from all of it. After she read the Gospel story of Jesus bringing Lazarus back from the dead, she also didn’t say it means to believe in miracles. Instead, she said the lesson in it for these times is that we can’t allow our hearts to be dead, or anger to get the best of us, or to respond to darkness with more darkness, but rather we must all be the hope and do the good we wish to see in our world, and to do it, begin by shining brightly, like lights. And we don’t have to be huge stadium lights either, because small ones work fine if there are lots of them. I sat there feeling about as bright as a skinny pink birthday candle, but then I thought about those trick candles–I love those– you know the ones that won’t quit no matter how many times they are blown out, much to the delight of children and laughter of adults when they are surprised by the sparks that keep reigniting? Sometimes they make so much smoke the alarms even go off. Finally, our priest said, have faith that love always wins, although sometimes it takes a while. “And vote– be sure you vote.”
