Maximilien Kolbe, Maria Skobtsova, Martin Luther King Jr.

I have been meditating on the martyrs for more than a week now. It started before my posts. I edit St Thomas's monthly newsletter, Crossroads. I have a section within Crossroads entitled Fasts and Feasts in which I highlight memorial days from the church calendar for the month ahead. Crossroads is on the table for the congregation on the second Sunday of each month. Last Sunday, when Crossroads came out, the front page of Crossroads was given to the three martyrs whose memorial day fell on 14 August. They are Maximilien Kolbe, Maria Skobtsova, and Martin Luther King Jr.

This has been a significant time for me and for the blog. Mostly, I am railing against injustice and destruction and promoting beauty and creativity. This has, albeit accidentally, over the past week, been a time for remembering. These martyrs have suffered the ultimate destruction on earth - the taking of their lives. Yet this destruction has underscored all that they stood for, all that is good, all that is humanity at its God-given best. In the coming week, I and the blog will move on to other things but the mist of memorialising the martyrs will remain in my spirit by God's grace.