Pep Talk: "An Admirable Start"

Not surprisingly, while sitting with other knuckleheads in faith-fortifying Friday morning fellowship, somebody uttered words blowing thy socks off. “We must get rid of hindering spirits” mentioned a dude sitting nearby but looking elsewhere while addressing about a dozen men from all walks of life spiritually trying to sharpen one another.

Amen brother.

My mind immediately zipped to Heather Heyer’s parents and their grieving, yet inspiring, comments at the memorial service for the young counter-protestor senselessly killed via  intolerant and bigoted-fueled craziness. “They tried to kill my child to shut her up. Well, guess what. You just magnified her,” proclaimed Susan Bro, Heyer’s mother. “Make my daughter’s death worthwhile.” Wow. Added Mark Heyer, the 32-year-old legal assistant’s father, “My daughter wanted to put down hate and promote fairness.”

Fellow Americans, we need to peacefully rise up and honor these commands. We know it. Our nation’s social fabric is frayed. Few are winning while many are losing. The hindering spirits of a growing income gap, shrinking middle class and increasing number of marginalized folks is a major contributor to the craziness. Excuse me, but it don’t matter whether we’re black, white or brown; live in a mission, mansion or on Main Street, we need to build a stronger cord to one another. How? We need to spend more time together. Get out of our silos. It’s unhealthy. Why not with exercising, relationship building and community service? Or something else promoting communities becoming superior to their former selves? Right now, there’s plenty of room for improvement.

“You poke that finger at yourself like Heather would have done and you make it happen,” Bro defiantly challenged those gathered in person and watching around the world through media. “You take that extra step and find a way to make a difference in the world.”

Double amen sister. Admittedly, it’s real easy to get fired up from a mourning mother’s comments. However, it’s far more difficult to execute. We must find a way to transform hindering societal pain so we lessen its transmittance in the form of Charlottesville’s insanity and other tragic moments commonplace these days. We must do better.

Back to Friday morning fellowship. While sitting there listening to talk about hindrance and its damaging effects, I think of family and the isolated, vulnerable and displaced ASC serves. Hindering spirits are active in each and have been quite detrimental. Later, according to the ol’ torn and tattered Oxford American dictionary, “hinder” is defined as “To keep a person or thing back by delaying progress.” 

Who, or what, could we pour time, talents or treasures into? Invest. How might our efforts contribute to lessening barriers hindering a person or thing and delaying progress? Home, work and elsewhere?

Cranium careens to a young woman’s life lost to bigotry, hate and stupidity and her parent’s inspirational response. “This is not the end of Heather’s legacy,” Bro said. “It is just the beginning.” Triple amen sister.

This week, winning the hindering spirits war would be an admirable start to Heather’s legacy. Let’s do it wherever roaming!