be strong

“On a planet that has given in... you must prepare to be very strong.”

                             Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

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Sometimes it seems as if we have just “given in”

Sometimes if feels as if we should

Why bother?

Why care?

Why try to work for justice, and equity?

Why try to walk the path of love?

All the forces that strive to

Crush and destroy love and compassion,

Generosity and forgiveness

Are just too strong

We say that “love wins”

But so often we don’t really believe it.

We see hate win

And greed

We see people, in their lust for power

Trample the poor and the vulnerable

With a smirk on their face

I used to think the writers of the Psalms were whiners 

“How long O Lord, how long?”

“Will you hide your face forever!”

But so often my soul screams the same questions

And it seems most logical just to give up, give in

To hide

To stay silent

Ah!

But we cannot

We cannot

The Psalmists for all their grumbling

End with Hallelujahs and songs of redemption

The horror of the cross ended in resurrection

The Sacred insists that at the core of creation

At our core

There is love

And so we must prepare to be very strong

Not in the sense that we become angry and brutal

Not in the sense that we build walls and fund a bloated military

Not in the sense that we encase ourselves with hate and anger

But that we become strong in the way of love

It takes more strength to love

Than to hate

Small childish dictators, whether they rule a country

Or a household

can hate, oppress and diminish

Love is beyond them

So let us be strong

Very strong

Let us

Live love