Every now and then something happens in the world and it seems that all the blogs I read catch onto it. The last one was the 7 July bomb attacks in London; today’s news is that Brother Roger, founder and leader of the Taize movement, was stabbed to death while officiating at a service today. Will this event resonate so loudly in the blogosphere? Perhaps not but it’s certainly making waves in many of the theologically orientated blogs that are on my regular list.
It’s a tragic and sad event and seems an ignominious end to the life of a man who had been devoted to peace and building bridges of prayer and reflection to reach across walls that divide people, particularly within the Christian church.He wasn’t a young man, either. At ninety years old, he would have been coming up to the age many people retire not that long after I was born!
Such an inexplicable act. I pray that God’s inexplicable peace will descend on those who were close to him and that the evil fire of such an act will be quickly quenched rather than allowed to spread. To some extent, London had been expecting some kind of terrorist attack but who would have expected this? Let us each not make too many assumptions about our safety but instead learn to live at peace with who we are, the legacy we leave behind and the hope we move forward into. Whether we pass away peacefully in our sleep or have life unexpectedly ripped from our grasp, may our lives have been lived in such a way that, like Brother Rogers, they may not have been in vain.
Tags: taize, Brother Roger, peace