Living in the Spirit
September 26, 2016

Scripture Reading: Lamentations 1:1-6

How lonely sits the city that once was full of people!
How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations!
She that was a princess among the provinces has become a vassal.  

She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks;
among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her;
all her friends have dealt treacherously with her,
they have become her enemies. –Lamentations 1:1-2

Last week a news report was staged on the empty streets of Charlotte, North Carolina where only hours before emotions boiled over into those same streets following a shooting. The stark difference was chilling. Do we desert our cities once again leaving them to decay around the people unable to escape or do we invest our energies in loving those cities into vibrant places of life and growth with enough for all? I say once again because I remember the white flight of the 1950’s and 1960’s, which lingers to haunt us still.

The tools of equal justice, preventive justice, and restorative justice work. Quality public education works, particularly when it targets the real needs of the students and adequately funds schools. Coordinating job training for youth and adults with the needs of new businesses works. Such programs only work if applied. They will only be applied if we the people insist.

We make lamentations now for not doing enough to prevent the anger and desperation on the streets. Let us channel our lamentations into actions to heal our wounded cities.

Prayer: Lord, hear our prayers, heal our divisions, make us whole, make us one. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized 
Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council 
of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights 
reserved.