Orlando and the Thing With Feathers

Grandness

9" x 12"

Watercolor

This past weekend another horrible tragedy took place on American soil.  So here we are again, grappling with how to deal with it and sort out all the parts and pieces.  By now you've probably heard all the news media and politicians/government leaders ad nauseum.  The same old rhetoric is being kicked around and no true solutions are honestly being looked at. 

We are in a world at war with increasing turmoil and tumult around the globe.  Economies are on the verge of collapsing and the financial prognosis is dismal.  Yet you and I are alive at this present moment.  Our hearts are beating and we have jobs to attend and bills to pay. How are we to live in this world where death shows up stealthily and unexpectedly to steal innocent lives?  At any turn it could be us in the next incident.  

Let me preface my thoughts with the first stanza of a poem by Emily Dickinson:

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul, 

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all...

Indian Paintbrush on Hannigan Pass Trail

We cannot live without hope!  As humans we flourish when we know that things are going to be okay, that good will triumph over evil, and that we will experience progress in our lives. So what can provide us with a hope based on substance and not just an airy/fairy wishing things would get better?  Follow my path of thought here to an answer.  

First, we must recognize that the world we live in has both good and evil in it.  A definite battle has gone on throughout history between these two forces.  Legislation will not change the effects of that evil on people.  It is like using band-aids to combat cancer.  Just as cancer has to be eradicated at the core, so too does evil.  It is in the hearts of all people.  A true change of heart has to happen in order for people to value what is good, true, and beautiful.

 Columbine on Hannigan Pass Trail

The greatest Man who ever lived gave His all on a wooden cross to defeat death, sin and suffering.  He demonstrated His  supreme authority over all by His resurrection from the dead. By acknowledging His rightful authority in our lives and His great love for us, we are enabled to live in a way that overcomes evil. The hope that we have is that ultimately evil will be overcome.  Jesus Christ has promised that!  We have hope that in the middle of trial and sorrow, He will be with us there. And more than that, He promises to return to this earth, to establish His kingdom forever in which all will be just and righteous.  Evil will be vanquished!

C.S. Lewis wrote that "a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do."  

Hannigan Pass Trail

G.K. Chesterson identified the culture of death in his day and stated that we are all on a battlefield.  We all know that there is a fight going on.  But as Dale Ahlquist observed in his book Common Sense 101 about Chesterton, Chesterton said that "this world can be made beautiful again by beholding it as a battlefield.  When we have defined and isolated the evil thing, the colours come back into everything else."

God is sovereign over all the events, nations and rulers of this world.  We can rest in that knowledge.  And there's even more to look forward to....As George Handel wrote about God in his famous music The Messiah:  

King of Kings and Lord of Lords

He shall rule forever and ever!

All I can say to that is "Bring it on!!!"  

Live bravely and beautifully!