Are these the times that try people’s souls? What does it mean to have your soul tried anyway?

I’ve been thinking about this picture:

Those faces, contorted in rage, caught for history. This picture, reflecting a military presence during school desegregation, anticipating, presumably, a violent reaction from the mob, freezes a moment in history. I wonder how those women feel looking back on it. Would they be ashamed to have been part of a mob hurling epithets at this young woman? Would they feel contrition?

That period in history was certainly turbulent. Fraught with animosity directed at those seeking an education, because of the color of their skins, the women in the crowd wear their anger and hate openly in their faces.

We too are in turbulent times. Whole industries are churning out content intended to divide us, to make us hate others like the women in this picture? We are fed misinformation and disinformation designed to further these divides. Presumably the motive for this hate industry is profit, but at what expense? Will this hate-filled rhetoric cost souls?

It will certainly try them, and it is our job to protect our souls. To listen deep to the wisdom that seeks love and peace, harmony and cooperation. To deplug from the constant rhetoric of othering and hate.

It’s a loud angry world. Hush and listen to the harmony of your soul.