I carry You in my heart

It took almost everything I had

To get up and get into the car

In the dry heat of an Eastern Oregon afternoon

I drove the back roads to Wallowa

The small town where many of those I worship with happen to live

As I drove I was haunted

Oppressed

Weighed down

More hate from the White House

More racism

More fuel on the fire of White Supremacy

Another shooting

20 plus people killed why shopping

Who were those people

Hispanic, mostly

Perhaps white

Who were they

What were they shopping for?

Diapers

A birthday gift?

Food?

It doesn’t matter

For they will never return home

Ever

At least they will not return to an earthly home

Because those words, so casually spoken

At a rally of deplorables

“How do we stop ‘the invasion’”

“We shoot them!”

Became real

I carried it with me

The hate, the death, sat in the passenger seat

It took all I could do to drive those 30 miles

Because at that moment the day was full of death

(it would get worse)

Full of little failures

A failure to connect with the sermon passage

A failure to advise

A failure to connect

And then I tapped into so many other failures

As a pastor

A counselor

A friend

A pastor

A person seeking love

And as the miles passed

I wondered, ‘why bother’

What difference will it make

That I made this attempt

What will it change?

I’m still not sure

I hope, I hope against hope

That even with my deficits

I can touch lives one person at a time

I hope that even when I am tired and oppressed

I can find it in me to listen, and care.

I hope, that even when I walk in the door

Filled with a kind of rage over what is happening in our country

Filled with sadness over the deaths of innocents

Filled with despair over my capacity to make a difference

Filled with regrets over my own shortcomings, my own failures

I carry with me the Christ

Somewhere

Deep down in my soul

And then this presence

Is

enough