Before I Forget…

Do you remember November 22, 1963, and the days that followed?  As a freshman in college, I was glued to the television, listening to Walter Cronkite on CBS as a nation was shocked by the violent assassination of President John F. Kennedy.  As a nation, we were brought together by television as we mourned JFK's death.  We watched his widow and two young children march behind the horse-drawn wagon that carried his body to the funeral Mass.  Television was powerful… it helped us to be in Dallas and Washington D.C…. it helped us through those sad November days… it wasn't a bad dream… it was real.
Jump ahead to September 11, 2001.  That horrible day when our country was attacked by terrorists… the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington D.C., a field in Pennsylvania.  A "normal" Tuesday morning.  People going about business as usual, and then we hear the first reports on the radio, and soon we turn on our televisions and watch it happen over and over again.  For months, every time we turned on CNN or another news channel, we were forced to watch the events of September 11 unfold over and over.  Yes, it was a horrible day in the history of our country, in our collective lives.  Television has changed since November 1963.  After months of viewing the events of September 11, day after day, people needed something else to help them live with the events and memory of September 11.  CNN was not the answer.  We were bombarded by our own media.
Television shows us horrible events hour after hour, day after day.   Innocent Iraqi children killed in a war they didn't start.  Young marines and soldiers from the U.S. doing their patriotic duty and coming home in caskets.  Millions of people, including children, living with AIDS in Africa.  A college student abducted in North Dakota.  A ten-year- old African American, sitting in home, doing her homework, and shot to death as rival gangs shoot at each other in her Minneapolis neighborhood.  One more rape.  One more gang death.  One more story about sexual abuse.   

One more homeless family. And the list goes on and on… Where do you find HOPE in such violent times?  What can keep us and our children from becoming violent in response to the violence we see all around us?  More guns in our homes?  A return to the death penalty?  Bigger and better bombs? 
Of course, prayer is always an easy answer.  But do we know what to ask God for in our prayers?  What response are we expecting from God?  Can we imagine a world without violence, war, poverty, hunger, and abuse?  Where will we find wisdom for living in our times that attack our minds and souls?  When the next horrible event happens here or abroad, will it push me or you over the edge? 
I believe that God works through the creative imagination of artists, musicians, and poets. God is speaking to us through their paintings, songs, music, and poems; the beauty they produce for all of us. Have you ever watched a movie that brings you to tears and gives you hope, and  "triggers" something in your imagination?  You hear a piece of music that "inspires" you to live as a child of God and as a sister/brother to a child in Iraq.  Maybe a painting  or sculpture makes your spirit soar and shows you the beauty of God and what life is really all about. You read a poem and it speaks to your imagination that these dark times can be turned around, that we can learn to live in the light. 
God speaks to us through our imaginations, through the creative imagination of our poets, artists, and musicians.  Surround yourself with some beauty everyday.  Turn off the TV and go to an art museum, a play, a concert, a poetry reading.  Make friends with folks who "imagine" a better world without war and violence. 
I think the Prince of Peace speaks to us through the artists in our midst, people with a better vision…