More Fear and Violence

As we rose this morning to news of at least ten people shot and five killed in a mass shooting in Dallas aimed at the police, we had no words but those of the psalmist. “For divine wrath endures but the twinkling of an eye, divine favor for a lifetime. Weeping may spend the night, but joy comes in the morning.” And sometimes it feels like wrath lasts forever, and joy is but the twinkling of an eye, as we find too much comfort in Psalm 137. It is sorrow that our both/and world means mourning upon mourning upon mourning people who have been killed. When can we shed our collective imagination in the redemptive power of violence, and not love?
We continue to hold especially in prayer those who are scared; whether scared of the state or because they are the human face of the state, our police officers and their families.