It is not easy to deal with collapse of this country that has given so much to so many. We cannot restore what has changed....only what has been lost....and more has changed than has been lost.
Each day can bring a gut-wrenching feeling....as if another hatch has blown off permitting the sea water to flood yet another hold of the ship. As so often happens while I type these posts....a song plays very softly next to here where I sit and right now it is that Trini Lopez 60s hit If I Had a Hammer. The lyrics caused me to pause...."I'd hammer in the morning....I'd hammer in the evening....all over this land....I hammer out danger....I'd hammer out a warning.....I'd hammer out the love between my brothers and my sisters."
Watching as America implodes is difficult....but there is that which transcends everything.....that gives hope to the pain....and moderates that which is not pain....and sets in order....and explains as well as can be explained. It's a rod when needed....and a staff to pull back....and a mirror....a wonderful mirror....like one of those beauty mirrors that I absolutely hate to look into for they show every imperfection....every piece of dirt.....every greasy pore....but wonderful in that as you continue to look at it you see the crimson redness covered by the most calming white....whiter than snow....that obscures that which on the surface is ugly.
That mirror of course is God's Word. A mysterious combination of hundreds of thousands of alphabetical letters making up tens of thousand of sentences....forming hundreds of chapters in dozens of individual books. Mysterious in that it breathes truth and pumps hope from the moment that a newly born again child of God smells the aroma of joy in its pages....continuing on through a lifelong pilgrimage where one at times grapples more than embraces.....but never ceases to find some new ray of hope or truth that transforms....and never....not even in the seventieth year as I can attest to....fails to give its own light to the page.
The news of the day will continue....with joy minced in....all of it cooked in an increasing temperature that refines. Ultimately our answer is not in returning to that which never was as beautiful as we imagined. It is in seeing the imperfections that were always there....and clinging not to what adorned the outside....but to that purpose which it was fashioned....the promulgation of the good news of Jesus Christ. So as time passes and history continues to be made in a world run amok we have a choice on what to cling to....one that will wither as the grass and fade as the flower....the other that will stand forever.
Each day can bring a gut-wrenching feeling....as if another hatch has blown off permitting the sea water to flood yet another hold of the ship. As so often happens while I type these posts....a song plays very softly next to here where I sit and right now it is that Trini Lopez 60s hit If I Had a Hammer. The lyrics caused me to pause...."I'd hammer in the morning....I'd hammer in the evening....all over this land....I hammer out danger....I'd hammer out a warning.....I'd hammer out the love between my brothers and my sisters."
Watching as America implodes is difficult....but there is that which transcends everything.....that gives hope to the pain....and moderates that which is not pain....and sets in order....and explains as well as can be explained. It's a rod when needed....and a staff to pull back....and a mirror....a wonderful mirror....like one of those beauty mirrors that I absolutely hate to look into for they show every imperfection....every piece of dirt.....every greasy pore....but wonderful in that as you continue to look at it you see the crimson redness covered by the most calming white....whiter than snow....that obscures that which on the surface is ugly.
That mirror of course is God's Word. A mysterious combination of hundreds of thousands of alphabetical letters making up tens of thousand of sentences....forming hundreds of chapters in dozens of individual books. Mysterious in that it breathes truth and pumps hope from the moment that a newly born again child of God smells the aroma of joy in its pages....continuing on through a lifelong pilgrimage where one at times grapples more than embraces.....but never ceases to find some new ray of hope or truth that transforms....and never....not even in the seventieth year as I can attest to....fails to give its own light to the page.
The news of the day will continue....with joy minced in....all of it cooked in an increasing temperature that refines. Ultimately our answer is not in returning to that which never was as beautiful as we imagined. It is in seeing the imperfections that were always there....and clinging not to what adorned the outside....but to that purpose which it was fashioned....the promulgation of the good news of Jesus Christ. So as time passes and history continues to be made in a world run amok we have a choice on what to cling to....one that will wither as the grass and fade as the flower....the other that will stand forever.
