“In joined hands there is still some token of hope, in the clinched fist none.” - Victor Hugo
   There are times in the life we share here on this side of glory when we are faced with situations, actions, and experiences that show the worst of humanity and have a profound impact on our physical, spiritual, and emotional health. Just this month, we saw that Sweden experienced the worst mass shooting in that nation’s history. Eleven people were murdered for no discernable reason at Campus Risbergska, an adult education center in Örebro, Sweden.  When these events happen, there are a variety of responses. For some, the immediate reaction is anger that ends up with a clinched fist. Perhaps that is you. Sometimes it is me. We want the person responsible to receive swift and harsh judgement. We want the system to undergo a structural and visceral change so that nothing like this can ever happen again. 
   I will not fully say that anger is wholly out of the question as a response to such horrific loss and violence. However, I would put forth that our most powerful response be love, love that joins hands with the broken hearted at their most vulnerable. Love that joins hands without fear, looking even into the face of death and not shying away from the opened eyed gaze of the grave. Joining hands in love with people who we seemingly have nothing in common with, other than the fact that we share this world, this life, this brokenness together in our own unique ways.
   In this way, we can hope to bring about that which Dr. King talks about when he says: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that..." And "So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime--the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."
  Let us be creative extremists for love that begins our work with joined hands. Let us unclench our fists of hatred and violence and move towards a shared life of harmony and peace. Let us mourn with those who mourn, cry with those who cry, and advocate for those who can no longer advocate for themselves. Let us ever be mindful of our neighbors, whoever they may be, that we may reach and join hands with those who are hurting, lonely, and vulnerable. In this we can help with grief. In this we may head off future tragedy by showing another path, a path that does not begin and end with a clinched fist, but one that is filled with the hope that Hugo and Dr. King expressed with their appeals to love. Not a fleeting love, a fleeting expression, rather the true love that flows out of Golgotha, the Place of the Skull, and fills the whole world in a tide of hope, even in the darkest of horrors. As the John the Evangelist says: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son…”
   Finally, I commend these words of J.R.R Tolkien to you, as a place to start in this life as a creative extremist who lives this life with joined hands, rather than a clenched fist: "I have found that it is the small everyday deed of ordinary folks that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.”