Good morning…
I spent the weekend processing our class trip to Montgomery, Alabama to visit the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, beautiful facilities offering experiential opportunities to teach the story of slavery, lynching, racial injustice in our country. I thought, “These memorials remind me of Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance Center.” We visited the sobering site in Israel this spring. It is so hard to fathom real people carelessly brutalizing other real people. It feels impossible to grasp the worst of our shared inhumanity.
When words escaped me, colorful images gave voice to my heart. I made six soul cards to help me process our collective pain.
With God we honestly examine the mixed emotions percolating within, as we walk our lonesome valleys with Jesus. Processing his own pain with our Father, he has been here before, he is with us now, and he will walk with us wearing a wounded scar in his side. As we prayerfully process our pain, our heart full of hurt tearfully drip out, dissipating into the ocean of God’s loving care. We each need to decide, “Will I cross my arms and stay sternly stoic as I face life’s pain or will I allow God to somehow melt me creatively into an instrument of lasting peace?” We all must ponder, “Will I look away from my true self, blending in with the world as a well-quaffed chameleon, or will I quietly allow the colorful joy of the Lord to rise up in my veins, with God’s healing touch overflowing my skin?”
When we exited the memorial honoring the innocent victims who have been lynched in our nation, we encountered a final quotation from Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved that stresses the power of love: “And O my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. And all your inside parts that they’d just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver—love it, love it, and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your life-holding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize.”
With God, might we deepen down to our innermost part and find a fresh way to love every inch of our human heart? Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it (Proverbs 4:23, NIV).
Guarding our beating heart and processing our pain with God, everything we do flows mysteriously toward holistic healing. Might a heart transformed by God’s mercy and love be our ultimate prize?
…Sue…
P.S. This week is Teacher Appreciation Week in the public schools. Our friends from PAWkids will be creating personalized gift baskets with a sweet message of gratitude for the classroom teachers at Kipp Woodson Park Academy. These hardworking helpers give from their humble hearts to teach the forty children who come to our after school enrichment program. If you would like to contribute gift cards for the baskets, please follow this link: https://www.amazon.com/registries/gl/guest-view/2LZ0VGRMVSWJ1 . For your convenience, you can have the cards sent to Larenzia Lawrence, the PAWkids Program Coordinator. Her address is: 1718 Thoms Drive, Atlanta GA, 30318. Thank you for supporting those who support the most at risk children in our community.
