“and the darkness around”

H,

There is no question about the predominant culture in the world at the moment. It is a world of darkness around and a few light spots here and there. Most people in the world do not live in the best of conditions and most countries in the world are not in prosperity or absolute peace. The human adventure is reaching a crescendo of pain and suffering while we plaster over the cracks with inspirational stories of ‘hope’ and the idea that all this wrong will pass us by.

There is a higher agenda for all of us who live in the light. Or are trying to. It is not about creating a self-protective oasis in the desert but about the pilgrimage to the promised land of the soul. We battle with this present state because we know there is a place to come. We battle, we do not sit inert, we speak of the golden age of Christ. Not just in words. We make our very lives conduits of this value. We act in this way even to our own detriment. We spend our resources even without hope of return. We speak truth in the midst of power struggles, even though it will cost us dearly. And we dwell in the light, even in all the darkness around us.

The older we get, the more this becomes apparent. With our politics, now the new frontier, there is a temptation to not be open or true or present to our purpose. It is far easier to change the world by becoming the world and calling that change. It is far more profitable to spend our lives in pursuit of the virtues that make the human soul whole. To be kind, to be generous, to be long suffering, to love, to be sacrificial, these are all the things that are counter-intuitive to present culture and the culture of politics. Yet, this is who we are and who we are becoming; to say there is another way and to, at the very least, not be in the way of that ultimate perfection to come.

I know the next chorus will be: why are we so worthy? The truth is we are not. The foolish to show wisdom, the unworthy to show grace and the fallen to show resurrection. The accuser is not only a liar because he tells outright lies. He is also one because he generally falls short of telling the whole story. The whole story is God and love. As we approach this new epoch, our job is not elective office but effective service. We are here to show the miracle of that single life spread through millennia and into infinity. We do not need to show it in flyers, posters or repeated words. The light will show in how the darkness recedes.