42

A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.

— Jackie Robinson

Renee Good lived an important life.

She died an American death, murdered in cold blood by Trump’s Gestapo. She leaves behind three children, including an orphaned son, who will grow up understanding that his mother died like Emmitt Till, an innocent whose murder was also an affront to the face of God.

Renee Good was martyred.

She was not a domestic terrorist as are Ashli Babbitt, Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph, Terry Nichols, Ted Kaczynski and Donald Trump.

She was an American patriot.

When I think about her son I am drawn towards what Abraham Lincoln wrote to the mother who lost five sons to violence. Each was killed in battle. They died to set men free.

On a daily basis, we are besieged by hateful words and decrees from America’s sickest, most deranged, and immoral president. He is a sinister monster.

Let us remember the words of America’s greatest leader, as he tried to console grief that was beyond comprehension:

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming.

But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom.

Renee Good.

Remember her name.

Jackie Robinson was not given the gift of years.

His titanic life ended at age 53.

His immortality was carved from suffering. Each lash of hatred that he absorbed was like a bullet to a good man’s soul, but he did not succumb to what lesser men would have.

Jackie Robinson could not be broken.

April 15 is Jackie Robinson Day, and each year, nearly every MLB player on every team wears #42 for the remembrance.

42 is the only number retired by every single team in baseball. The number hangs in every MLB ballpark, a testament to an observation once made by Dr. King that “the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.”

This year, that day will be particularly poignant because there is a sinister tide pulling towards the darkness from which Jackie Robinson was an incandescent medicine.

We all know this.

We all feel the pull of the abyss.

So many of us feel deep anger at grave injustice, but we must have the discipline to appreciate that anger is rooted in sadness, while knowing that anger and despair are no remedy for hate. We must all find certainty from deeper wellsprings of truth than seem readily available in these chaotic days, so we must look to the rock where the answers are anchored forever.

Jackie Robinson is the rock.

Jackie Robinson was eulogized by the Reverend Jesse Jackson, then a young man who spoke words that day that will ring for all time.

Though delivered 54 years ago they hang in the air waiting to be recalled and renewed.

Today, Reverend Jackson is 84 years old, and in declining health.

Pray for him and send good wishes to the Jackson family as the ravages of time have quieted his mighty roar.

Yet, his message endures: “KEEP HOPE ALIVE.”

When I first heard those words pass Reverend Jackson’s lips, I was 17 years old, and mesmerized by his oratorical skill, but I could not fully grasp the message. I had not yet lived enough to appreciate the transcendent wisdom that had been etched by searing experiences and deep pain from which I was estranged completely.

There is always an excuse — and often real justification to revel in bitterness — but it is always a snake oil cure.

Always.

Hate can only be conquered by love, and the battle between the two is enduring, perpetual and undecided.

Hate always returns for a rematch with its eternal foe.

Succumbing to hate in defense of liberty will kill freedom in America. No American in the Trump era has earned the right to repudiate the teachings of Dr. King, the indomitability of John Lewis and the sublime grace of Jackie Robinson because they detest Trump.

None.

Lt. Jackie Robinson faced court martial in 1943 because he refused to move to the back of a segregated bus.

He was acquitted.

Perhaps his trial was a necessitous link in preparation for an even greater test. Maybe, what could not be understood in a single moment of depraved injustice set in motion an inexorable tide of justice that could not be contained by all the hate and bigotry in the universe.

Eleven years after Robinson’s triumph over a kangaroo court a woman enraged by the lynching of Emmitt Till, who turned her anger to activism, refused to move to the back of the bus. Her name was Rosa Parks.

A young man named Martin Luther King would lead the boycott of the Montgomery bus system, and he would be called a communist, an agitator, a terrorist and a criminal for doing so.

King has always been hated by the enemies of justice and equality, like the bigot Charlie Kirk who proclaimed:

MLK was awful. He’s not a good person. He said one good thing he actually didn’t believe.

Jackie Robinson knew anger, but was fortified by something more powerful.

Listen to these magnificent words.

Think about the meaning of life, and the path to eternal glory.

I don’t propose to know the meaning of life, or the divine purpose of that of any person.

I do know that I believe deeply in something that is carved on another tombstone above the final resting place of a president who would have disdained MAGA and its hatreds. These words were from his presidential farewell.

I know in my heart that man is good... ...that what is right will always eventually triumph and there is purpose and worth to each and every life.

These are the words spoken by Jesse Jackson at Robinson’s funeral:

Today we must balance the tears of sorrow with the tears of joy, mix the bitter with the sweet, death and life. Jackie, as a figure in history, was a rock in the water creating concentric circles and ripples of new possibility. He was medicine. He was immunised by God from catching the diseases that he fought. The Lord's arms of protection enabled him to go through dangers seen and unseen, and he had the capacity to wear glory with grace.

Jackie's body was a temple of God, an instrument of peace. We would watch him disappear into nothingness and stand back as spectators and watch the suffering from afar. The mercy of God intercepted this process Tuesday and permitted him to steal away home. Where referees are out of place, and only the supreme judge of the universe speaks.

Renee Good. Say her name.

Do not be afraid.

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