Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

I’m writing today with a heavy heart. Watching the news out of El Paso and reading various takes on race relations in America took a summer Saturday and made it into a day of mourning and reflection. It’s impossible not to watch these horrors unfold and ask, just sometimes, why God doesn’t do more. It’s impossible, I think, to hear the story of an undocumented person wounded in a white supremacist shooting afraid to get medical care because they might be picked up by ICE, and not wonder at the state of things.

We hear over and over again of thoughts and prayers. It sounds so trite doesn’t it? As if the only response to these inhuman tragedies large and small is simply to put down our head and ask a reluctant God to do something — this time.

Yet, as a people of faith it is thoughts and prayers, that we need right now. It is too easy to just file this away as another statistical anomaly so that we might get back to more pleasant distractions than these. We do need to think — our thoughts need to be focused on the victims of these tragedies. Our thoughts need to be focused on what we can do. Our thoughts need to be focused on what God is calling us to amidst these heartbreaking stories. Our thoughts need to be put toward healing hearts and minds and bodies — and our souls.

There’s a sickness in our national soul. It has burst out in paroxysms of violence in the past when mob violence has been visited upon the innocent, when state violence has been sanctioned against “those” people, and when the land we pray and think on was taken by force. There’s a sickness in our soul that needs thought and, my God, does it need prayer.

You may remember the President’s unfortunate comments after Charlottesville that there were “good people” on both sides. If we take a step back from the remark and look at it a different way there’s truth there. We are not born to hate. We are not born to kill. We are not born to see enemies all around. We are not born full of fearful rage. At some point there are good people on both sides — at some point some great sickness takes the good and twists it. This is beyond an issue of mental health capacity or gun restrictions — this is an issue about what it is in our communities that is breaking men and making them killers.

There will be all manner of attempts at quick and shallow analysis but it is going to take deep thought and unceasing prayer to get to the heart of this sickness.

Prayer is not simply the act of thanking God or repenting for something. It’s not just the act of asking God to do one thing or another. Prayer of all kinds is not about moving God’s heart so often as it is about letting God move ours. It is about asking God to so guide our thoughts and our hands that we might do justice, that we might heal, that we might bind up, and comfort, and yes, that we might fight for change. So let our thoughts and prayers be fervent enough today that God might use us as instruments of loving peace tomorrow.

Yours in Christ,

Fr Robert