There are times

There are times, aren't there, when our words fail us?  When trying to explain to someone about the wonder of a God who loves us so much and who surrounds us with astounding grace...well, how do you speak about the Infinite among and within us when all we have are finite words?  When trying to explain the miracle of childbirth, of watching a brand new human being come into the world, and you are filled with all the hope and the fear of what life will hold for that tiny, fragile individual...how can you put that into words?

And so what words possibly can be sufficient to express all that we are feeling in the light of the murders of the nine individuals last night at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston?  How can we understand such evil and depravity in anyone?  How could that young man have sat through an hour-long study of the Holy Bible, and only then take out his gun and start shooting?  How could the holiness of a sanctuary - a place where God is worshiped - be so horribly and brutally violated?

In pain, anger, dismay, and frustration, we cry out with the psalmists of old: "How long, O Lord? How long?"

The Presbyterian Church's Book of Common Worship contains this prayer, attributed to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

'Yes, Jesus, I want to be on your right side or your left side,

not for any selfish reason.

I want to be on your right or your best side,

not in terms of some political kingdom or ambition,

but I just want to be there

in love and in justice and in truth

and in commitment to others,

so we can make of this old world a new world.  Amen."

Most of us, at least every Sunday, join in praying that God's reign would come and that God's will would be done on earth as in heaven.  We long for that day. We pray for that day.  We wait for that day.

In our waiting, let us also work...and pray...and speak out...and love our neighbors...and love even our enemies...and show compassion...and weep with those who weep...and rail against injustice wherever it exists...and join our hands and voices and efforts with those who work for peace and for justice.

Yet there still are no words, at least not right now, at least not within me.  And so I simply grieve.  And I pray.