Lighten Our Darkness

In Tolkien’s great work of fiction, The Lord of the Rings, The Elvish lord Elrond makes this statement as the company of the ring considers what road they must take: “Now we must take the hard road, a road unforeseen. There lies our hope, if hope it be.” For the Fellowship, only one road provided hope for the future, and it was a most difficult path.  

Those of us who have lived for a while know hope lies in the hard road forward. When we worked to envision the chapel that we opened on campus last year, we attempted to tie the concept of a modern chapel to tradition and the history of Christianity. That led us to Ireland. Early Irish Christian monks were some of the first to envision carved crosses and imagery on them as teaching tools for their congregations. Often illiterate, the vast majority of parishioners were unable to read the text, but they relished stories conveyed orally and in pictorial form. When I began to imagine a cross for the garden outside the Chapel at George Fox, my model was the cross that guards the cemetery at the top of Burnside Road in Portland. It was a direct copy of the Cross of Scriptures at Clonmacnoise in Ireland – one of the most famous crosses in all of Europe. Its creator was Irish stonemason Brendan McGloin.  

Many of you will remember that we contacted Brendan and he agreed to create a cross in the style of the great Irish High Crosses. The process began almost three years ago. When we started the project, we did not know that Brendan had cancer that threatened his life. When I spoke with him, he rarely discussed his challenges and instead consistently conveyed how much he enjoyed the project – it gave him hope. As you may know, last spring after chemotherapy failed and there were no treatments available to him, Brendan went to be with our Lord.  

Now, we are trying to find a way to complete his work. Brendan’s family feels strongly that the cross should be finished to honor Brendan’s legacy. You might imagine that there are very few people, either in the U.S. or in Ireland, who could complete such a work of art. His brother, Francis McGloin, found two of the finest sculptors in Ireland – Jackie McKenna and Seamus Dunbar. Both are noted artists in their own right and are busy with their own commissions. They love this project and although Brendan did not leave directions on exactly how to do a number of things, they have accepted the challenge. Francis is managing the project and his sister Geraldine is creating the rest of the art for the stone masons to work from. It has truly become a work of a team with great love for the project and its original creator.  

I am convinced that they will be able to complete the project. It will take far longer than we ever hoped, but we will be patient, looking forward to the day that Brendan’s cross rests in the garden of the chapel. There will be few like it in the United States and it will testify to the work of Jesus. We are traveling a road we did not design, but the road unforeseen is our destiny in this work. God will guide our journey.  The cross is intended to provide images of Christ’s work and encourage people who view it to contemplate the gift of his grace and mercy.  

Hours before I got on a plane to head to visit the team working on the High Cross, an assassin shot and killed Charlie Kirk, a man who has been outspoken in his political and Christian beliefs. It was another in a long series of events that have drawn us into national polarization. To use Tolkien's words, we are on a very hard road we did not foresee. It is very hard to know what to say as weekly we experience ideological violence in our country (The tragic events in Minnesota and Colorado are only the most recent examples. While I was in Ireland, a British soldier was the first to be charged with murder for the events on Bloody Sunday more than 50 years ago. Ireland too has its violent history.) 

Charlie Kirk was killed by an assassin who wished to silence his views. As I was reading various reactions to the assassination, I was struck by the comments of Jonathan Isaac, the center for the Orlando Magic. Isaac had befriended Kirk and noted, “Charlie had my respect, not because I agreed with everything he had ever said or done. Some of the conversations we had was even me disagreeing with the things he said. But we always had civil discourse, and he was always prepared to talk about why he thought what he thought. To me that’s a respectable man.”  

Kirk, who was attempting to engage in dialogue on a university campus, had his voice silenced by one who preferred a rifle to a pen to engage his opponent. For me, the event brought back memories of my childhood in the 1960s and the political assassinations of another era.  

I am personally horrified that a father would be killed in front of his wife and children for expressing his beliefs. It was an attack on him, our culture and our democracy. We are often told that prayers are insufficient but we believe they are essential and we offer our prayers for his family. At the same time, it is also important that we also work to build communities where difference is a virtue and where the exchange of ideas is part of our work together. We are in a difficult moment in our country and one that requires grace and mercy.  

In his First Inaugural Address, President Lincoln, as the nation plunged toward a Civil War during which more than 500,000 Americans lost their lives, finished his speech with this famous phrase: 

“I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave, to ever living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as we they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

The Civil War was a long time ago and in a different era. But Lincoln, perhaps our greatest president, always kept in front of the people a vision for the common good of all the people. I serve at an institution, George Fox University, whose purpose is to educate citizens well and to introduce them to a relationship with Jesus Christ. We seek the flourishing of all citizens and in the educational process, we encourage our students to embrace both advocacy and listening, commitment and empathy, truth and justice. Violence is not a solution to the problems we face.

On my last night in Ireland, I attended a service at St. Patrick’s church in Dublin. As the service came to a close, the priest spoke this prayer:

“Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all dangers and perils of this night for the love of thy only Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ.”  

Indeed, in this dark cultural moment, we do ask the Lord to lighten our darkness and to borrow from my friend, Barry Corey, who sent me this verse from St. Peter – “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But always do this with gentleness and respect.”  1 Peter 3:15.  

The cross we are building has no inherent power. It is a symbol of Christ’s sacrificial love for all humanity. I often have a difficult time loving my neighbor, much less those who disagree with me. Yet, Christ’s call on our lives is to love as he loved – not an easy assignment. In the service of our Risen Lord, we are to be agents of peace and mercy in a very broken world.