The Flash! – April 30, 2015

This week I’ve been feeling much like my namesake Jacob in that famous story about his divine wrestling match. All week I’ve had a knot in my stomach as each day’s news from Baltimore has unfolded. In anticipation of filling this space I’ve been wrestling mightily with what to say, knowing that not saying anything is not an option; and yet feeling that there are no words to express or capture the pain, emotion, and intensity of this moment in history.

One of the most famous quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. goes like this: Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. This timeless and true notion speaks directly to the nature of violence. The most insidious aspect of violence is that it feeds on itself; any act of violence inevitably leads to a next. Just as the only way darkness is defeated with with light, violence is only and ever defeated with peace.

I have long been anticipating tomorrow (now today) because the movie Selma will be available outside of movie theaters. The power of that moment in history (and the movie) is that it visually and graphically proves Dr. King’s point. When those prophetic people locked arms on that bridge and confronted the forces of darkness and violence, they shone with the radiance of God’s light and peace. That was the beginning of the end of darkness and violence as expressed through legal segregation.

From the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma to the streets of Baltimore (and Ferguson, and Staten Island, and Charleston) the message – and the call – is clear: it is when people of faith witness to the transforming light of God’s love and liberation with peaceful words and actions that the cycle of violence and the forces of darkness are defeated.

In light of the darkness that has descended upon Baltimore, may God bless us with faith, trust, courage, and conviction to follow the light of the world by being lights for the world.

Peace,
Andy

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