What Have You Paid to Follow Him?

I drove away from Charlottesville a few hours before the tiki torch atrocity. I wasn’t running. The trip there had been planned for months, and I’d actually stayed a day longer than the original schedule dictated. I’d spent the week caring for my father and visiting with my son and his girlfriend. People I love live in Charlottesville, and I’ve long considered it home. Charlottesville is where I go when the world wears me thin; it’s the place on earth where I breathe the deepest.

I admit I cried through much of that weekend. There was dissonance in hearing the name of my beloved city followed by such horrifying details. People texted and asked about my son Patrick. “No,” I replied. “He’s not there. He’s safe in Chicago.” How ironic. My pastoral retreat city was the center of ugly hate. He was safe somewhere other than home. The dissonance clanged in my brain.

And then, I grew increasingly aware of another divide. Please read the rest here.