There’s a lot of shouting these days. Also marching, crying, worrying, reflecting, considering, thinking, wondering, praying, celebrating, spewing, planning, mourning, hating, hoping – all kinds of “ing” going on in the heads and hearts of people, “ing” from every hidden nook and cranny of the emotional landscape.
I’m processing the previous months’ events and all the current “ing” privately. There’s much I could say, but there’s far more that I need to hear, contemplate, and think on.
In the meantime, I find great reason to hope – and the reason lies far outside the realm of most of the current rhetoric.
It lies – to be precise – in the back of my church where on Sunday morning, a group of dads were wearing their babies. The picture’s a bit fuzzy, I know – maybe because it’s not often that a dad wearing a baby snaps a selfie with other dads also wearing babies. It’s not the standard fare of Virtual Stardom. Nor does it jive with the current discursive landscape.
Notice they are all smiling – 
Gracious, it surely does make my heart sing, my soul hope, my spirit rejoice, my mind relax, and my face break into a grin.
Dads in the back with their babies – not just with their babies, but wearing their babies. That’s an “ing” I’m going to dance about all week long. That’s an “ing” I’m all for.
[Coda: We closed the Sunday service reciting the well-known prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, everyone holding hands, across the seats and across the aisles – a room of people who assuredly have different views about all the recent “ing”s. We did it with full hearts, deep trust, abiding hope, and utter faith in the Father of us all, who not only made us and knows us but also wears us tightly bound to his chest. Even when all seems not well, all that matters is very well indeed. Amen.]
Breathe 