How long?

I ran in a 10K this morning. While most of you were still in your bed, I put my shorts on and laced up the tennies and took a stroll through downtown Birmingham. We started at City Hall, which is right by Lynn Park. This is such an interesting part of town, because a couple blocks down there is the civil rights museum, 16th street Baptist church, and it was here, in this park that many teenagers met to march.

Truly this city has so much history.

Today was a warm day. Warm, especially for November. By the end of the run- about 9, it surely was about 65 or 70 degrees. Today the streets were filled with runners, cheer-ers, water passer out-ers, and a few random pedestrians.

But I have run this course before, and the scene was different. Sunday morning, I ran it about 7:30, and it must have been about 30 or 35 outside. As we ran the area around Linn Park the benches were filled with people bundled up trying to keep warm from the night, or smoking, and hoping that the nicotine filling their lungs will help them forget that their fingers are numb. Another friend said that he went out for a long run that morning and started at 5, before the sun came up, and as he was running under an underpass he almost tripped over a man still asleep under the bridge.

It is when I think about these collisions of reality- the footprints of the past mingling with the shallow inhalations of the present, that I scream out with the Psalmist and wonder.... How long o lord.

Where is the justice that was promised? Is this really the kingdom come?