THE BROAD AND THE NARROW

On Sunday the 22^nd, Nancy and I attended worship services at a small community church, King’s Family Church, in Kansas City’s River Market. 

I’ve had a myriad of worship experiences in my lifetime. I grew up in the Episcopal Church in Massachusetts. There are times even now I feel a longing for the “high church” experience, with its vestments, liturgy, and sense of mystery. I abandoned those roots when I began to feel increasingly alienated from the God who seemed distant and impersonal. I even spoke to the rector of the church and got little satisfaction. I went away from the conversation sensing that God was very busy and didn’t have enough time for my concerns. For years, until I went to Vietnam in 1965, I professed atheism. If God didn’t have time for me, I reasoned, I didn’t have time for him. Then, a series of remarkable events led me to a military leadership school in Ohio. That was when I became a Christian.

My early Christian experience after conversion was in Panama, where I was fortunate to hook up with an Australian missionary named Bruce Haste. Bruce had a mission to an indigenous tribe called the Guaymi. I have fond memories of Bruce and me taking a couple of trail ponies on a trek from his home base in the foothills to the tribal village in the mountains. I can still feel shivers up and down my spine when I think about the free form services the native Christians conducted. I didn’t understand the language at all, but I felt an intense connection with God and the small band of pilgrims gathered in that thatched hut. It was the first time in my Christian experience that I fully grasped the words of Jesus – “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

I’ve been privileged to walk in great cathedrals like Notre Dame in Paris, St. Paul’s in London, or St. Peter’s in Rome. They are all magnificent, but none of them can ever surpass the experiences I had in the mountains with Bruce and his small “congregation.” The smallness….the intimacy….the power….It was all very life-changing.

Since those early days in Panama, I’ve attended Southern Baptist churches, American Baptist churches, Vineyard churches, and independent Charismatic churches. I currently attend a vibrant Foursquare fellowship. While I’ve learned, grown, and contributed in those settings, there’s always been a part of me that’s longed for what I experienced in that small thatched hut in Panama.

I’ve read John Wesley’s account of that fateful meeting in Aldersgate where he felt his “heart strangely warmed.” As I sat there in that small River Market church on the 22^nd, I could feel that same sense of intimacy and power I’d felt so long ago in Panama. I felt a sense of stirring and shaking. Something within me was being rearranged and “strangely warmed.”

In the week since I’ve been giving thought to what it means to be a Christian in a culture like America, where we all too often operate under the notion that we are free to express our faith. But, are we? Or are we bound by an invisible ball and chain of civil religion, which in turn keeps us complying with “societal norms?”

What should our role in society be? Should we just accept the economic and cultural benefits of what Father John Neuhaus once described as “American Babylon” and ignore the headlong rush America is making into the darkness? When the culture tells us to just get along are they really telling us to surrender our core convictions? Are they telling us to “shut up and keep drinking the Annie Green Springs like everyone else?”

When the powerful among us fire a shot across our bow and insist that our “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed,” do we, like many in the institutional church, just give in to get along? Or, do we push back and risk alienation, loss of privilege, and worldly wealth?

How do we respond?

One of the most rewarding relationships in my adult life was with a man named Woodson Moore. He was, in the truest sense of the word, a mentor. He was a member of the same church Nancy and I attended. He was part of a leadership team that had a firmer grasp on what eventually turned out to be destructive events and decisions that were being made in the name of God. As it was unfolding, I could sense that Woodson was struggling with the things going on and his role as a leader. I asked him about it and he said very little, other than to gesture with his hands holding them far apart and then moving them closer and closer together. He did it several times and then asked, “Do you get it, Phil?” I told him I didn’t. He kept gesturing and said with each movement, “It’s the broad and the narrow, Phil…It’s the broad and the narrow.”(see Matthew 7)

Over time, we grappled with what was going on, particularly how to respond to a church that refused to take the narrow way to life and had instead decided to take the broad path to destruction. It was during those times that he reminded me of the role the prophets played in the Old Testament. He asked more than once, “What was their role in Israel’s religious and social fabric?” I offered my usual sophomoric answers and he told me emphatically that he’d studied it over and over and concluded that their task was to disrupt and disturb. They issued warning after warning and the people refused to listen. They reminded them that God had delivered them from the bondage of Egypt and had given them the law. When they continued to turn a deaf ear to the prophets’ words, they issued dire warnings. “Your enemies will overtake you and you will live in bondage once more.” They were mocked, but in the end they were proven right.

But, what does this have to do with 21^st century Christianity in America?

Everything!

When I was in grad school back in the seventies I came across one of Peter Marshall’s sermons from the 1940’s. While most people today have no idea who he was, in the seventies Marshall’s work was still quite well known, especially his work as the Chaplain of the Senate from 1947 till he died suddenly two years after he’d started. 

The sermon I listened to was his exposition from Exodus chapters 8 through 10. My synopsis of that sermon follows.

The Exodus account of Israel’s deliverance from Egyptian bondage is as powerful as it is instructive, even for nation states and communities of faith in the 21^st century.

As Marshall recounted it, the children of Israel had been slaves in Egypt for over 400 years and the time of deliverance was at hand. It was all part of a Master plan to shape a nation of former slaves into nation that would become what the prophet Isaiah would hundreds of years later describe as “a light to the nations.”

God had sent Moses to the court of Pharaoh to deliver God’s message to Egypt. “Let my people go so they may worship me.” Pharaoh, being a powerful man, wasn’t going to give in easily to the demands of a people who were slaves. It took a series of ten plagues – blood, frogs, gnats, flies, the death of Egyptian livestock, boils, hail, locusts, total darkness, and finally, the death of Egypt’s firstborn children.

The plagues were so terrible that Pharaoh would intermittently give in and offer to let the people go. The first offer, made to stave off the plague of frogs, was to let the people go “tomorrow.” God seemed to relent and agree. The plague was abated and Pharaoh apparently read it as a sign of weakness, much like tyrants like Bashar al Assad and Vladimir Putin read the intentions of the civilized world today. He refused to let the people go. A plague of gnats followed, then a plague of flies, which seemed to do the trick, at least temporarily. “Make your sacrifices here. I’ll let you do that.” Moses refused. Pharaoh sweetened the deal. “You can go to make your sacrifices, but don’t go too far.” What an amazingly 21^st century approach. How often have we Christians been told, “Don’t get too carried away with this religion business. Don’t go too far. Cozy up to us, give your religion lip service and everything will be okay.”

By now, you know the drill. The plague of flies was lifted and Pharaoh dug his heels in. Next came the plague on Egypt’s livestock, then boils, then hail. With the threat of locusts looming, Pharaoh offered another compromise. The men could go, but the women, children, and the livestock had to stay. Again, Pharaoh’s approach is being mirrored in 21^st century societies, some of which claim to be free and democratic. How often do we men surrender give our families, particularly our children, to the elements of our society, our entertainment media, our schools, and, in some cases, our churches that entice, then eventually snare and capture them.

When the plagues of locusts and darkness descended, Pharaoh offered a final compromise. “You, along with your women and children can go, but your livestock must stay.” The offer was rejected.

It all ended tragically for the people of Egypt. Their firstborn died and it seemed that Pharaoh had seen the light. But, evil can be stubborn. Egypt’s chariots and its military might were sent to pursue the fleeing Israelites. You know how that ended. Even today, archaeologists are finding chariot wheels embedded in the mud of the Red Sea. 

God’s intent for Israel was clear. It was to be all or nothing. If the people of Israel truly wanted to shake off the shackles of bondage, they would have to become totally dependent on God for their welfare.

God was true to his promise, but the people weren’t and they paid a heavy price for abandoning the covenant that had been sealed at the Red Sea, the wilderness, and Mount Sinai. 

That begs the questions for us today. How willing are we to live our faith out in the face of the forces buffeting us and enticing us? How willing are we to disrupt the status quo, the stale religion, the corrupt politics, and the cult of money, power and celebrity that seems to rule our affections nowadays? And, how willing are we to live as exiles in a society that would have us surrender much that we hold sacred? 

There is, as there always has been, a broad way and a narrow way. With these two paths before us, we must choose. Let us hope we choose wisely.

 

A POST MODERN BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY

“Exile remains exile, and Babylon remains Babylon, but both are penetrated, are charged, by the promise of deliverance. For Old Testament Israel, deliverance is understood as return and rebuilding of Jerusalem. For New Testament Israel, deliverance is arrival at the destination of the long pilgrimage toward the New Jerusalem.”

-          Father Richard John Neuhaus – “American Babylon” (2009)

Ever since Donald Trump announced his candidacy for President, I’ve argued as passionately as I could that he was not presidential material. I spent a lot of time outlining why, from policy differences where I could find them and by trying to determine his character traits based on the wealth of information that was readily available. To me, and many others, he was manifestly unfit for the high office he sought.

That was months ago. Since then, he has swept through a small army of Republican candidates like a hot knife through butter. That list included the candidate I was supporting, Marco Rubio. We’re now a month out from the general election and it appears that the Republican Party, and Donald Trump, are on the cusp of an unmitigated disaster. While I can’t predict it with certainty, I suspect that Donald Trump will lose to Hillary Clinton and the Republican Party may well lose the House and Senate. It’s the doomsday scenario that would give Hillary Clinton complete control of the agenda, including the nomination of Supreme Court justices, expanding the Democrats’ battle with the pro-life movement by repealing the Hyde Amendment and continuing America’s retreat from principle on the international stage.

Over the past few days I’ve been interacting with some of the people I know on Facebook. Most, but not all, are fellow Christians. Some aren’t pleased with me because of the positions I’ve taken vis a vis Mr. Trump. That’s fine. We’re all free moral agents.

I find the vast majority of their arguments in favor of a Trump candidacy unpersuasive, but there is one that I believe I need to consider. The argument they’ve forwarded is that Donald Trump is now a Christian and because of that he deserves a chance to be the President.

Does he?

I’m sure there are a lot of people who are howling that the idea that Donald Trump is now an Evangelical Christian. The internet is buzzing from coast to coast. The gloating is palpable, even through the airwaves. I know a few people here locally who’ve been savaging Trump since the now famous audio tapes were released. I get it. The defeat of their nemesis is immanent and they’re gloating, like the Philistines taunting Samson in the temple of Dagon or the Pharisees mocking Jesus at his trial. It’s going to be happening for a while, particularly as more and more revelations about Donald Trump surface. Trump’s adversaries and critics aren’t done and there’s not much we can do about it.

Is Donald Trump’s conversion sincere? Most would say no, but I’m not one of them. I take it at face value, in the same way I accepted Bill Clinton’s public repentance after the Lewinsky affair. I’m sure that a lot of people don’t accept Bill Clinton’s turnaround. But, as Abraham Lincoln said in his second inaugural, “let us judge not, that we be not judged.”

Having said that, does it now follow that I should vote for Donald Trump? 

I don’t believe it does.

First, conversion doesn’t erase all of Donald Trump’s character flaws in an instant. They were years in the making and I suspect rooting them out will also take years. Conversion to Christianity is just the beginning of what is, or should be, a life-long pilgrimage.

Second, and most important, I’m bothered that some Trump supporters, particularly Evangelical leaders, continue to push his candidacy. Why? Can’t they see that what they’re doing is lighting even more candles to entice the moth. If they truly care about Donald Trump and his soul they would do the things necessary to eliminate the temptation of political power and the obstacles the limelight have placed in his path. They need to ask themselves what is more important, temporal power or Donald Trump’s eternal destiny. They need to ask themselves, “Is my interest more in preserving my place of privilege and power than it is in Donald Trump’s soul?”

Donald Trump needs time and space, but it doesn’t look like he’s going to get it. I doubt that he’s read about the parable of the sower (Matthew 13), but many of his enablers have. They know full well that the early days after conversion to Christianity can be perilous. They know that the seeds of hope are sometimes sown into thorny ground, where “the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.”

If Donald Trump is to have any chance of making his “confession” real, he needs to be separated from the thorny ground of politics. I fear that his enablers aren’t going to let that happen. Do they care more about maintaining their lofty perches than they do about Donald Trump? The best that I can say is that I’m suspicious of their motives.

I’m going to follow with the accounts of three people that will, I believe, demonstrate conclusively that what I’ve said is true. The first is Paul, the man who is considered one of the New Testament giants. He’s called an apostle. The second is Charles Colson, Richard Nixon’s former White House counsel, and the third is me.

Almost every Christian knows the story of Paul. The account of his conversion from Judaism to Christianity on the Damascus Road is high drama, particularly when Saul, as he was known prior to his conversion, was zealously persecuting Christians. The New Testament accounts shortly after his conversion show that there was a great deal of fear within the Christian community about him. Was his conversion sincere? There were, understandably, doubters.

What did it take to convince them? Time. Paul spent three years in Arabia, learning, absorbing, and having Christian truth “revealed” to him. You can read about it at the end of the first chapter of Galatians. It was time well spent. Well over half of the New Testament letters were penned by Paul. His missionary journeys brought Christianity to the Gentile world. In one sense, he established what has become, in some circles, a tradition. Graduate studies in theology are generally completed in a three year period.

There may have been doubters when Paul was “born again.” Time and Paul’s sincerity convinced them that he was indeed a Christian.

Charles Colson was once considered Richard Nixon’s hatchet man. As Nixon’s White House counsel, he was a key player in the skullduggery that became known as Watergate. He was ruthless. It was said he would have run over his own mother if it meant protecting Richard Nixon. Like the rest of the Watergate conspirators, he got caught. Unlike many of the others, he went to prison. While in prison he was, as we Evangelicals say, “born again.”

Was his conversion sincere or was he just lobbying for a reduced sentence? There were many skeptics.

In the end, he proved them wrong. Colson’s conversion was real. As I sit here, I’m looking at a couple of his books, “The God of Stones and Spiders” and “Against the Night,” which I’ve read. I’ve also read his classic, “Born Again,” which I’ve read but don’t have a copy of. 

While in prison, he started what has become one of the most dynamic Christian ministries in the world, Prison Fellowship, which provides support to inmates and their families on the outside trying to hold their lives together.

I’ve read many of the essays he penned over the years for Christianity Today. They reveal a man of remarkable insight and faith.

In 1993 he won the prestigious Templeton Prize for religion which” honors a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works.”

Charles Colson died in 2012. I have absolutely no doubt I’ll see him in heaven some day!

I present myself as a third witness, not because I consider myself part of the pantheon, but because the process of my conversion demonstrates the same pattern.

People who knew me in the mid-sixties saw an amoral, ruthless man. In those days, I wouldn’t have hesitated to hurt, or even murder, if I felt I could get away with it or it was going to be to my advantage. That’s the man I was.

But, Christ changed me, from the inside out. I was “born again” in August of 1969.

People who knew me prior to my conversion were skeptical. I don’t blame them. 

The last thing I needed was the limelight. Thankfully, I was assigned military duty in Panama. When I got there I discovered that while I went to work, I really never had any work to do. That freed me up to study the Bible, which I’d never done, to meditate on what my conversion meant, and pray.  I was able to spend extended leave time with an Australian missionary, Bruce Haste, at his ministry base in the mountains. I still have fond memories of trekking up the mountains with Bruce and his trail ponies, visiting villages and delivering villagers from the scourge of superstition and witch doctors. I can still hear the voices of the Lutheran Hour and Billy Graham crusades flowing from the short wave as we rested at his home in the foothills prior to our next adventure.

I needed those eighteen months. They gave me the opportunity to start my pilgrimage as a grounded Christian who understood what his faith meant.

That’s what I believe Donald Trump needs. Unfortunately, that may not be what he’s going to get. The power brokers are being merciless. I believe they’re throwing him right back into the fire in a desperate attempt to protect their positions of power and privilege.

It’s a battle they’re going to lose. It’s a battle the Republican Party is going to lose and it’s a battle people of faith are going to lose.  The barbarians are at the gates and they’ve almost knocked the hinges off. 

What’s next? What does this mean for the Christian community?

In a word, it means captivity. In two words, it means Babylonian captivity.

What do I mean by that?

It’s interesting. Some current Trump supporters are saying that they’ll still vote for him. But, their anger is so kindled that they’re promising to vote out every Republican who has either disavowed or distanced themselves from Donald Trump. That opens the very real possibility of the Democratic Party re-taking the House and Senate. If I were a Democrat, I’d be salivating at the prospect. I can only imagine what they’re thinking. Reconciliation? Come on, now, you know that’s not true. How does it go? Revenge is a dish best served cold!

Before he died in 2009, Father Richard John Neuhaus penned a remarkable essay that foreshadowed where we are today. Toward the end of the essay, he cites the work of Scottish philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre:

“Abandoning the idea of moral truth, politics is no longer the deliberation of how we ought to order our life together but is now, in the words of Alasdair MacIntyre, warfare is carried on by other means. All politics is combat politics. There is no longer, some say, a common American culture, and we should stop pretending that there is. There are only subcultures. Choose your subculture, take up its grievances, contentions, and slogans, and prepare to do battle against the enemy. Liberated from the delusion that we and our opponents can together say “We Hold These Truths,” we are urged to recognize the futility of being locked in civil argument and accept the fact that there is no substitute for partisan victory.”

By the early evening on November 8^th, I believe we’re going to see that a great battle has been lost. The Babylonian captivity will begin.

Laws will change, gradually. In time the composition of our courts will change. There won’t be brown shirts marching or Nuremberg-like rallies. There won’t be any evidence of gestapo tactics. It will be done with the precision of changes in law. Social mores will continue to shift, from our current speed of a ballistic missile to light speed.  Targets beyond groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor will increase in numbers. People of faith will become the minority report. They will have no say in the decision making processes. For all intents and purposes, they will become the captives.

I’m painting a bleak picture. Believe me, I hope I’m wrong. But I don’t believe I am. Hillary Clinton is going to take control and she’s been waiting in the wings, like Madame Defarge at the foot of the guillotine, for a long time. She’s going to be releasing all that pent up energy on those she’s affectionately called her “enemies” for years. Once that happens, it won’t be long till those of us who are members of the household of faith will be “hanging our harps on the willow trees.”

The road ahead is going to be difficult. We’ll be passing by the “slough of despond” and the “pillar of salt.” We’ll be tempted to go along at the “hill of lucre.” It’s going to be a long, difficult journey.

But, I remain hopeful. At the beginning of this essay I offered the following snippet from Father Neuhaus’s masterwork, “American Babylon.” He said, “For New Testament Israel, deliverance is arrival at the destination of the long pilgrimage toward the New Jerusalem.” I believe it's critically important for people of faith to embrace those words.

The Christian church has, unfortunately, needed the chastisement that’s about to come. We’ve been stiff-necked and rebellious. Too many of our leaders have lusted for power and prominence rather than taking the Biblical road of servanthood. We’ve had a decades long affair with temporal power and we’re going to pay a heavy price for our rebellion.

Until that redemptive work is done, we’ll need to endure the taunts of those in power. We’ll have to stand firm in the face of their edicts.

But, if we’re patient and faithful, we will pull through. The grace we’re about to receive may seem to be painful, but it will be what we need.

Selah!

SPECKS AND PLANKS

  I just finished reading two books. The first was Bill Buckley’s “Up from Liberalism,” which was his critique of the Liberalism of the 1950’s and his staunch defense of Conservatism. I loved it, in part because Buckley was a master of language, in part because he infuriated Liberals, and in part because I believe in many of the Conservative principles he advanced.

The book’s last paragraph beautifully expresses how I feel about individual liberty – “I will not willingly cede more power to anyone…I will hoard my power like a miser, resisting every effort to drain it away from me. I will then use my power, as I see fit. I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God.”

The other book, J.D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy,” has had an even more profound impact on my thinking.

Vance is an anomaly.  He was born Kentucky coal mining country and raised by his grandparents in Middletown, Ohio. His early life was chaotic. His mother was addicted to drugs and a series of men who drifted in and out of her, and his, life. She was sometimes abusive. The Kentucky and Ohio landscapes of his youth were in the throes of a downward spiral. The once proud coal country of Kentucky and southern Ohio had been decimated. Unemployment, drug addiction, and perpetual government dependence had become the norms.

Yet, somehow, Vance escaped that fate. “Hillbilly Elegy” is the story of a man who clawed his way from desperate circumstances to a law degree from Yale and a budding career as an author and contributing opinion writer at the New York Times.

How did he do it?

While he was brutally honest about his family’s problems, he also talked openly of his love for his mother and her love for him. He heaped pages and pages of praise on his grandparents, whom he affectionately called “Mamaw” and “Papaw,” and the powerful impact they had on his life. While they were often crude and sometimes violent, Vance credits them with teaching him the value of hard work and education that opened the doors of opportunity for him.

So, J.D. Vance has clawed his way out of dire circumstances. He’s proud of his hillbilly roots. He’s not bitter, but he still casts a wary eye on elites and politicians, as he well should. They all too often have this nasty habit C.S. Lewis’s master demon, Screwtape, described as “an ingrained habit of belittling anything that concerns the great mass of their fellow men.”

Vance and I come from different parts of the country, but there are some common threads in our respective experiences. My father was a hardworking man, a chipper (ice man), by trade. He was also a roaring alcoholic. He died when I was six. My mother was an uneducated immigrant from Newfoundland. When my father died, she had a complete nervous breakdown and was institutionalized for a couple of years, which meant my brother, sister, and I became wards of the state during that time. Somehow, propelled by her love for us, she clawed her way past shock treatments and God knows what else to bring us back together. For years after that our lives were lived in tenements or government housing projects, under the ever-watchful eye of welfare department bureaucrats.

All these years later, I occasionally find it hard to believe we’ve done as well as we have.

Vance is quite charitable when it comes to his views on elites. I wish I could say that, but I can’t. I don’t like them and I don’t like being around them. I don’t feel comfortable in their worlds. I feel far more at home being around blue collar workers than I do being around movers and shakers. I prefer the company of the powerless to schmoozing with the powerful. 

I guess you can take the boy out of the tenements and housing projects, but you can’t take the tenements and housing projects out of the boy.

In his New York Times column this morning, Vance wrote about Hillary Clinton’s recent comment about “baskets of deplorables.” It was a very revealing Freudian slip. She later tried to temper her remark, claiming that she didn’t mean to vilify millions of Donald Trump supporters or other Americans who aren’t racists, bigots, homophobes, or xenophobes. But, the damage had been done. Hillary’s contempt for millions of her fellow citizens and her own brand of bigotry were exposed.

Vance finished by suggesting Hillary Clinton and her elite friends consider Jesus’ words about specks and planks (Matthew 7:3-5).

It was good advice. We Conservatives and Donald Trump’s “delporables” have our blind spots and prejudices, but so do Hillary and her fellow elites. Maybe it’s time for them to concentrate on their own sins rather than ours.

FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT

Ever since the carnage in Orlando my moods have careened wildly, from tiny slivers of hope, to despair, to grief, then rage.

I’d like to be able to say that my hopes are ascendant, but they’re not. Any solution to the ongoing slaughter seems to be all but impossible. The agencies tasked with protecting us from the evil in our midst are overwhelmed. F.B.I. Director James Comey recently said that stopping the lone wolves intent on murder and mayhem is like looking for a thousand tiny needles in a huge haystack. He admitted that the Bureau’s resources are paper thin. There are too many lone wolves and not enough agents or tracking mechanisms to deal effectively with them. In essence, he was telling us that incidents like Orlando have become part of our everyday landscape.

My despair deepens as I ask myself, “Who can fix this?” Can Donald Trump? Hillary Clinton? Our political parties? Governors? City or County Commissioners? The answer to each of the questions is, unfortunately, “No!” 

We’ve all seen it played out. “It’s the Republicans’ fault.” “It’s the Democrats’.” “It’s the Muslim world’s.” “Conservative Christians are to blame.” It’s maddening. Recriminations aren’t solutions, but we sure love wallowing in them. What else can I feel but despair when this seems to be the only response to the terror we can muster up?

Then, grief sets in. I turn on cable news. The names and faces of the slain scroll, like the after credits of a Hollywood film. So many of the faces seem to be joyful. They’re brief glimpses of lives that once were, with promising futures ahead of them. But, they’re all gone now, taken by a malevolent creature I’ll forever refuse to give the dignity of a name.

I don’t know any of them, but I know that had parents, friends, and loved ones who are feeling an even deeper sense of grief that I am. I think if the names and wonder how wounded my heart would be if I saw the names of my sons and daughter as they passed by on the screen. “Jarrod Thomas Dillon…Born October 30^th, 1968.” “Elizabeth Noel Hook…Born December 17^th, 1970.” “Michael Joseph Dillon…Born November 14^th, 1973.”

My grief intensifies, then gives way to deep seated rage. Like an Old Testament warrior, I want to “dash them to pieces.” But who are they? I can’t see their faces, nor do I know their names. They’re more like wisps floating around in the mists of evil than human beings. How can I possibly direct my rage against something like that? It might hit some target, but would it be the intended target? Would it make me feel better in the end?  No! It would be like running the proverbial fool’s errand.

But, the rage doesn’t go away. It lingers. I’ve got to release it and the only direction that makes sense to me in my muddled state is heaven itself. I ask the same questions that have been asked for millennia: “How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save?” “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?”

There are no bolts from the blue in response, but I find myself once again realizing that somehow, some day, “Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight.”

 

We really need to cling to our hopes for the future, but what of today? 

For me, the clearest expression of what you and I must do today comes from the mouth of Samwise Gamgee, Frodo Baggins’ companion in Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings.” At a perilous point in their journey, Frodo is so burdened by his task that he’s ready to give up. Samwise reminds him of the past and the promise of a beautiful future- “How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened. But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.” He reminds him that others before him felt like giving up, but didn’t because “they were holding on to something.” And, finally, he reminds Frodo of what they held on to. “There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.”

 

And, so it is for our time. It’s come full circle. There is some good in the world and we must do our part and fight the good fight of faith to preserve it.