Shoulder To Shoulder

Our oldest son moved to Washington, DC one year ago.
He was beginning to work at a law firm.
After three years of law school and one year of clerking in federal court, he was ready to begin.
My husband sees him whenever he goes to Washington, DC on business.

For me, it is another story.
I wanted to give him time to settle in before I went down to see him.
However, about a month after he moved there, our daughter became engaged.
Two weeks after her engagement, our youngest son got engaged.

It became wedding central very quickly.
Our oldest son was not forgotten by any means but time for me to get to DC was limited.
Fall quickly turned into Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Winter turned into spring and then wedding showers for both brides were scheduled.

So one year passed before I got down to see my son’s apartment and his office.
The weekend finally happened; the same weekend as our wedding anniversary.
My husband and I spent a gorgeous fall weekend in DC.
We walked and enjoyed the sights and our time together.

I was very eager to go to church with my son.
I was very glad that his pastor, Mark Dever, was preaching while we were visiting.
I have read Dever’s books and was delighted to sit under his teaching.
We parked and walked around Capitol Hill to go to church.

The quaint, brick streets and charming houses caught my eye as we walked.
As we turned the corner and approached the church, I was surprised at the number of people.
Young people, young families with many children walked up the steps to go inside.
We entered Capitol Hill Baptist Church with all its history.

On a late November evening in 1867 on Capitol Hill, a group of people came together to pray about the vision of seeing a church planted in their midst. That church, founded first in the prayers of its future members, would one decade later exist as the Metropolitan Baptist Church, registered in 1878 with 31 members. The current facility stands on the same ground as the original chapel. (taken from CHBC website)

I was entering a building with 138 year old history.
I looked around the pews, and the chairs, and the seats in the balcony.
People filled the seats with more standing in every available space.
I saw such wonderful diversity.

In that diversity, I saw the body of Christ.
This was an urban congregation: multi-race, multi-ethnic, and multi-aged.
It was wonderful.
It was a glimpse of what heaven will be like as we all gather before the Throne.

After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. (Revelation 7:9)

Often, we sit in our churches and look at people each week who look just like us.
It was refreshing to see the Body of Christ so perfectly represented in one place.
The morning service was two hours long.
We sang hymn after hymn and were well taught from the word of God.

We went back to church that evening when again I saw people everywhere.
I saw a sea of faces not like my own.
I was worshiping with brothers and sisters in a different place but with the same Father.
I saw glimpses of the universal church and the beauty of coming together in Christ.

It wasn’t until my son took us to a museum that I began to understand all I saw that morning.
We went to the Newseum in Washington, DC.
Front pages of newspapers from around the world and across the country are displayed outside.
Each front page is changed every morning.

It was one room in particular where everything I had seen in church came alive.
It was an exhibit of Pulitzer Prize winning photographs.
I remembered so many of these photographs.
Many others I had never seen before yet they stirred deep emotions within me.

I stood in front of one particular picture.
It was a photo taken by Kevin Carter, which he sold to the New York Times.
The photograph first appeared on March 26, 1993.
It affected the people unlike many pictures before.

The original title of the photograph was: The Struggling Girl.
It became known as: The Vulture and the Little Girl.
While on a trip to the Sudan, Carter found a little girl trying to walk to a feeding center.
She collapsed on the way and a vulture landed nearby.

Carter got a shot from within 10 meters; he approached slowly so the vulture would not fly away.
Only after the famous shot, Carter chased the vulture away.
Carter had shot one of the most controversial photographs of modern journalism.
People contacted the New York Times to check on the condition of the little girl.

The paper ran an editor’s note telling the public that the girl did walk away from the vulture.
The ultimate fate of the little girl was not known.
Kevin Carter was bombarded with questions as to why he did not help the little girl.
The St. Petersburg Times in Florida wrote a strong criticism.

The man adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of her suffering, might just as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene.

Carter worked at a time when photojournalists were told not to touch famine victims.
There was a fear of spreading disease.
Twenty people per hour died at the food center; this little girl was not unique.
Cater later expressed regret that he had not done anything to help the girl.

In 1994, Kevin Carter won the Pulitzer prize for his photograph.
That same year, Kevin Carter committed suicide.
As I read the description next to the photograph, my heart hurt.
There are many victims in this sin-stained, fallen world.

I stood, full of raw emotion as I contemplated the photograph.
I pointed to the picture and with a shaky voice, said to my son, Did you see this?
Next to me was a woman with a face much different than mine.
She was in tears.

This one did it for me, she said.
We both stood there and stared at the photograph with tears in our eyes.
We stood there shoulder to shoulder, our faces different colors, and we cried.
We saw the brokenness of the world we live in and it overwhelmed us.

The fallenness of the world.
The preying on the weak.
The regret over not being able to do more.
The hopelessness apart from Christ.

The diversity I saw that morning at church was standing in that room as well.
Two women with different color skin cried over the brokenness of this world.
Two women saw the fragility of the human condition and were moved.
The brokenness should bind us together not tear us further apart.

The vultures gather.
They wait for their prey.
None of us can fix the brokenness alone.
Together, in Christ, all things are possible.

There is hope in Him.
There is no despair.
We stand shoulder to shoulder and drive the vultures away.
We do it all for Him and in Him.

And we cry.
And we hope.
And we do all we can as we stand shoulder to shoulder.
And we share this human experience together.

Then I will purify the lips of the peoples, that all of them may call on the name of the LORD and serve him shoulder to shoulder. (Zephaniah 3:9)

2 responses to “Shoulder To Shoulder”

1. Oh Gina, what a heart-breaking photograph! One wonders where the child’s parents are–sick? dead? It is so easy to forget the millions of people the world over who live in poverty, famine, war zones, etc. And like you and the woman, we are all humans, all made in God’s image. It is truly a fallen world, but the good news is that God has provided a better one with Him in heaven, where people from every country and region and color will worship Him as one in Christ Jesus. Let’s remember to pray for our fellow men and women all over the world.

   Reply

   • Sue,
     This photograph is brutally raw and honest. We live in a fallen world that one day the Lord Jesus will come back and redeem. Until then, we wait and we share the hope of the Gospel with others.
     Gina

     Reply