When President Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize there was a line in his speech that really struck a nerve with me. He said, "When a nation loses hope there is a rot that sets in." When a nation or a people lose hope there is a rot. And we are seeing manifestations of that rot on so many levels. The horrific violence that happens night after night in our neighborhoods all across urban America is symptomatic of the rot. It is what happens when our souls become darkened and we no longer recognize the goodness, when we can no longer make a distinction between wrong and right. The church is meant to be a bearer of light. We take that message in the street, into our communities and our neighborhoods where violence snuffs out life as easily as a trickle of water shuts off a flame in a lighted candle. Hope is the victor when drug houses are claimed as Holy ground and community centers are built to replace them. Hope emerges when communities of faith are working to rid neighborhoods of boarded up houses to claim them and rebuild them to become homes for individuals who never dreamed that they would be home owners. Hope is reborn when we refuse to let young people believe the worst about themselves and we begin to take serious interest in helping them to achieve the greatness that God has in mind for them. To rebuild and to restore hope requires an activist faith.
Posted on: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 21:31:09 +0000
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