Words expressing a growing reality among citizens of the world as daily reports of brutality, family separations, deportations, and loss of life headline the news.
A recent poem by the same title, When It’s Just All Too Much from the pen of Rosemerry Whatola Trommer offers pause for reflection.
The more complex the problem,
the more trapped, the more closed in I feel,
the more I learn to trust what is simple,
the way the potato in the cupboard
does the one thing it can do—
it calls on whatever thrives inside itself,
then grows doggedly, awkwardly toward the light.
I want to turn toward the life that lives through me.
Give it all my energy. Offer it back to the world.
I find that what thrives inside me is God’s presence. God’s self calling me to justice, compassion, and mercy. With heart open to the gift of God’s self and a willingness to share that gift with and among each other the questions arise. Is brutality ever just? Is loss of life by close range or multiple gunshots ever justifiable?
As intolerance of brutal disrespect for individuals infiltrates more and more hearts, we become instruments of justice and peace in a world of unrest.
The people of MN serve as examples of God’s presence, as night after night they gather in peaceful and prayerful protest. May we embrace their energy to ignite the embers of peace and justice in all.
