Scout

The problem with yelling angrily, or discussing heatedly, or murmuring intensely, or even thinking moderately about important modern issues like packing the courts or unpacking them, or the merits or demerits of Trump’s behavior is this:
I imagine Jesus walked street after street crowded with the same modern arguments; surely many from his own disciples:  
“They're going to pack the courts!  And half the country is fine with that!"
"The whole place is going to shambles!"
"It’s the poor, it's the future I’m worried about!"
"Sometimes a man of his time has to do what he's gotta do, and if he has to make a few heads roll...”
When all of the sudden Jesus says, “Did somebody just touch my cloak?”
And then he searches the crowd for the only soul brave enough to admit she’s desperately sick.   And while He and the woman quietly speak--their backs stooped in concern like two rocks leaned against each other, alone yet unfazed in the roaring ocean--everyone else chokes on the stones stuck in their throats.  It is this aspect of Christ and the crucified, of healer and healing and healed, which veritably sings to the universe that chattering and gnawing on hypotheticals is a sensory-depriving, life-fracturing, faith-dimming, heart-shrinking problem.  Why?  Because it ignores love.  Love is not hypothetical.  It is right now—and right now is small and outside of what everyone talks about.  Love wanders near the fringes desperately tugging.  But no one notices. 
No one except Christ.  Because Christ is love.
​
Love is Scout. She suddenly appears out of nowhere, below the red mist clouding everyone’s lycnhing.  “Mr. Cunningham. I say, Mr. Cunningham...I know your boy...”