{"id":4870,"date":"2015-06-21T07:53:39","date_gmt":"2015-06-21T11:53:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/intramuralist.com\/?p=4870"},"modified":"2015-06-21T07:53:39","modified_gmt":"2015-06-21T11:53:39","slug":"a-city-on-our-knees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/intramuralist.com\/?p=4870","title":{"rendered":"a city on our knees"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"11535877_10200532905721898_2173573534082001634_n\"<\/a>Today is one of those days when my planned post was totally scrapped. I had written about the events in Charleston. I had written about the horrific hate crime and how heartbreaking it is to witness the intentional end to innocent life…<\/p>\n

I acknowledged how as a nation we react. Our collective reaction was actually bittersweetly beautiful after 9\/11… for even though still in shock, together we were determined to triumph amidst the ashes; hope and perseverance trumped all evil that took down the towers. I then talked about evil in my post…<\/p>\n

My troubling observation was that while I understand the passion that wishes to ensure events like Charleston never happen again, I keep thinking we\u2019re missing the bigger point; something\u2019s off in us. I just don\u2019t sense the underlying problem in regard to what happened in Charleston is gun control; it\u2019s not about guns. It\u2019s also not about racism. It\u2019s about evil.<\/strong><\/em> It\u2019s about evil manifest<\/strong><\/em> as racism and hatred.<\/p>\n

I realize such is not a popular point. It\u2019s ok. I get it. All of us want this violence to stop, and my sense is that such is the intention of the social media and microphone screamers (we all know who they are).<\/em> It\u2019s just that if we fail to wrestle with the bigger, underlying problem, we will stop and solve very little. That\u2019s what my previously planned post was about.<\/p>\n

And then last night, along with several hundred others, I went to a community vigil honoring Cincinnati police officer Sonny Kim.<\/p>\n

On Friday morning, Kim responded to a 911 call of a man acting erratically in the streets. We would later learn that the call came from the erratically-acting man. He set the situation up, and before the call, he texted friends that he wanted to die at the hands of police. Before he then received his fatal wish, he first shot and killed Kim, who was first on the scene. Sonny Kim was a 27 year, decorated, respected veteran of the Cincinnati police force. He was the so-called “best” of the “best.”<\/p>\n

In Charleston, a white man intentionally killed nine black men and women. In Cincinnati, a black man intentionally killed a man born in South Korea. The two 21 year olds were both motivated by evil.<\/p>\n

At the vigil for Kim, the father of a good friend of my two oldest boys, significant emotion was rampant. But none of the reactions were divisive. There was no shouting; there was no screaming; there was nothing self-serving; and there was no pointing of fingers even at the one who committed the obvious, heinous wrong. In fact, one police officer who spoke boldly amidst his tears said, \u201cIt doesn\u2019t always make sense. You can\u2019t figure everything out.\u201d\u2028\u2028<\/em><\/p>\n

And I felt him saying, too (via my liberal paraphrase), \u201cDon\u2019t spend your time and energy trying to figure this senseless evil out. Instead, come together. Come together as one,\u201d he said. \u201cHumble yourselves, honoring Officer Kim in how you live and love one another now. Submit to God. It\u2019s the only way life makes sense. When you submit to God, you will find the unity that moves us forward in a healthy and wise way.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

It was a bittersweet, beautiful night.<\/p>\n

Today in Charleston, South Carolina, members of the historic Emanuel AME Church will reconvene in worship. They will acknowledge senseless evil exists on this planet, some things hurt more than ever imagined, and that God is still in control and worthy of our relationship and submission. For those who heard the victims\u2019 families speak last week, we witnessed that beautiful, unified, tear-laced submission.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s tough. It\u2019s also beautiful when we have the wisdom and humility to actually come together.<\/p>\n

Respectfully… with a heavy heart…<\/p>\n

AR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is one of those days when my planned post was totally scrapped. I had written about the events in Charleston. I had written about the horrific hate crime and how heartbreaking it is to witness the intentional end to innocent life… I acknowledged how as a nation we react. Our collective reaction was actually … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “a city on our knees”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-event"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4870"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4878,"href":"http:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4870\/revisions\/4878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}