To Hell With Despair. This is the Darkness We Were Made For

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

I just returned from a few days in Austin, Texas, speaking at a progressive seminary to a diverse audience of ministers, activists, educators, and compassionate human beings.

​With everything happening lately, I was really hesitant to attend for fear that I would simply have my fears and worries reiterated hundreds of times—and that I would leave there more hopeless and deflated than when I began.

And while the former did happen, the latter certainly did not.

Yes, people were disheartened and scared, as most of them are on the front lines of activism, caregiving, and advocacy for marginalized communities. A good number of them do work along our southern border, and the urgency they feel for immigrants, refugees, and foreigners was heavy on their chests and etched into their faces. Every single one of those gathered there acutely feel the troubles of these days, as they serve and know the people who are most under duress right now. More than most Americans, they know what the stakes and the toll will be of the sprawling governmental violence unfolding by the second.

Yet, while those realities exist, there is another truth that these people understand, and that is that they are present, too.

Alongside the unthinkable ugliness, they are still here to create things of beauty in response.

They certainly don't wish for these adverse conditions, but they also know that this is precisely why they are here: to be radiant in a dark place; a task more important than ever when the night looms so large and appears to be falling so rapidly.

Friends, these days of quickly-dimming hope are precisely what people of light were made for.

I never want to be the purveyor of false hope or toxic positivity here. I’ll never shy away from the truth in order to avoid being the bearer of bad news.
Yes, the headlines are undoubtedly grim.
Yes, the human rights attritions are tangible.
Yes, the number of people seemingly oblivious to the dangers are massive.
Yes, the destructive work of the bigots is breathtakingly prolific.

And yet, all of that doesn't really matter to you and me. These facts are almost irrelevant when it comes to the truth of who we choose to be. The day we allow miserable people to define who we are is the day we can hang it the hell up and just join in the growing parade declaring America’s demise.

I’m too invested, and frankly, I’m too fuckin’ stubborn to do that. I’m refuse to allow the terrorists around me to break through the borders of my soul and snuff out the light within me, while I still have breath and a heartbeat.

Every day people ask me, “John, how bad can it get here?” and my response is, “I’m not sure decent human beings can fathom that.”

History shows us that people overcome by evil are capable of novel and ever-more-inventive ways of inflicting suffering on other human beings.

That can’t be what we are most burdened with right now.

How bad things will get isn't a question we can answer. How good we will be in response is all we have within our hands and all we will ever have.

At our opening worship gathering, Pastor Eunbee Ham reminded us all of the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. "Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars."

It’s good to remember that these were not the safe and sappy sentiments of someone cushioned by comfort and cradled in ease. They were the steady declaration of an exhausted human being staring unflinchingly into the face of the darkest of days, who would not be consumed by the monsters who hoped that he would be.

Right now, the hateful people are trying to overwhelm us into despair and resignation, and so resolute joy will be our resistance.

My friends in Austin reminded me that while the night seems to be falling all around us, this is the moment we need to be those who refuse to comply.

Good humans, we need to explode outward from our cores right now, with all the courage, love, and mercy we have so that those who arrive long after our passing will benefit from the light we create in these days.

If ever we needed the good people, we need them now.

This is the darkness we were made for.