Paralysis

How long, O LORD, must I call for help,

but you do not listen?

Or cry out to you, “Violence!”

but you do not save?

Why do you make me look at injustice?

Why do you tolerate wrong?

Destruction and violence are before me;

There is strife, and conflict abounds.

Therefore the law is paralyzed,

and justice never prevails.

Habakkuk 1:2-4

While walking through the weeping willow grove that winds through the heart of my neighborhood today, I was startled by a dove. It was sitting in the middle of the dirt path and when I approached, it fluttered its wings and gave a screech like tires skidding on the road. This has happened before, and the dove usually flies away, but today after flapping the dove remained on the ground. Its left wing, facing me, was disjointed, jutting up out of its body like a small mountain; a pink wound flashed beneath grey-brown feathers.

This morning I read an article in the newspaper about police officers in Chicago who shot and killed a teenager and a woman on the day after Christmas. The young man had been arguing with his father, threatening him with an aluminum bat, and the father called the police and asked the woman, their neighbor, to open the door when the police arrived.