in light of the recent tragedies

I write because I have to.  I write because by putting thoughts, feelings, and the unspeakable into words, justice is served.  People’s stories are told.  Honest hearts meet honest hearts and the human condition is no longer a mystery, rather broken down into fathomable pieces, relatable to every other breath breather on the planet.

Why are we alive?  It’s a question that haunts me, often so heavily overshadowed by the shadow of death.  As a race, we contend to continue running as the generations before us, and although we persist, we cannot overcome the one thing that so seemingly easily overcomes us: death.

I don’t mean to be dark or sober or give any undeserved place to the thing most of us triumphantly avoid with every blink.  But death illuminates life with a new wash of light.  This existence is fragile—as are our hearts, hands, skin, breath, passions, dreams.  Nothing is certain, nothing is sure.

Except for hope.

Sometimes its promise is so fleeting.  Other times it carries us on the wings of the wind.  But always hope remains, if only in memory, if only in hope itself.

We don’t seek impressive eloquence.  We seek a note that resonates with the resounding chords of our souls.  Pain that intermingles with tears and love and hope.  A light at the end of the tunnel.  We ache for a better world—if not for ourselves then at least for our children.

I go around and around, looking for a snapshot of heaven.  Wondering if everything I believe of it is true.  Heck, I wonder if everything I believe of this world is true.  What is mortality, what is morality?  What is right, what is wrong?  Is it actually as cut and dried as we have always thought it was?

And if not, what a relief.  Not because we like breaking the rules, but because so many of the rules are too futile to be followed.  Stupid, petty reasons to abandon wearing one’s heart on one’s sleeve in exchange for stuffing it back behind the mask that smiles unnervingly like rest of the human army.

I take a deep breath.  Sometimes it is the only thing that anchors me to the reality of life, of God.  The still, quiet peace of the morning, lingered over with a cup of coffee…it doesn’t take away the pain of life, nor erase the sting of death, but the simplest of moments overcome the complexities of humanity most thoroughly.

Because from there we can see farther, clearer.  Because we cannot fight for life unless life itself burns within us, burns for justice, burns into the darkness, burns away the all-consuming pride and fear.  And

FIGHT WE MUST.

Many days, months, years, even decades may pass before we see the sculpture taking form—our blood, sweat, and tears finally making a dent in the oppressive anvil of injustice.

And when it finally does,

it will have been worth it.