"His legs take their ascending flight to seek the breast of darkness and be suckled by the night..."
We are sinners in the hands of an angry God.
Something that looks more ridiculous with every passing day is the façade of normalcy and “business as usual.” We live our lives in fear of paper lions when real ones-that we try our best to ignore-stand outside the paper walls of our tall towers. We fritter day-in, day-out over what the boss will think, how much to study, what to say, do, and think to succeed-to “get a good job and be real rich.”
This absurd idea exists in our collective mind that events will play out the way we want them to. The bulk of you naïve realists will be quick to announce, “Oh no, I know there will be roadblocks and detours.” Yes, but do you count on the road to just dead-end around the next turn? You mean little changes. You don’t count on the little changes, really. But you certainly don’t count on the big ones.
A friend on mine was just diagnosed with… I don’t even want to say what he was diagnosed with. May God be with him. It’s not hopeless, but most of us would die of shock to hear that. A strong person my friend is, indeed, to be so optimistic given the circumstances.
Another friend of mine, who isn’t very old by the way, just attended his father’s funeral in India. I don’t think he was counting on his dad to die. Anyone with a heart can tell he’s broken up about it. But, glory be to God, this man has faith. He’s a devout Hindu, and he’s observing the ritualistic fast prescribed after a person’s father dies. He knows that his father is in a better place. As painful as life is for him, he lives for his father’s sake, and he finds comfort in it.
For these people, and for anyone if they think about it, there is no “ordinary life,” except maybe a shadow of a memory long ago. There is only the Way of the Cross (or its equivalent for non-Christians). I’m thankful that nothing that bad has happened in my life, but I know that one day, no matter what I do, it will.
Most people don’t pause a moment. They neither suffer nor suffer with another in compassion. They just ignore it. They think they’re immune, if they think about it at all. They are hard of heart. Forget world hunger and AIDS. Those are far-off dreams of a quasi-moralistic utilitarian. Rich Americans who speak of world hunger are running away from pain. There is suffering here and now in the United States. Right under your nose, someone is suffering, whether it be for lack of food, health, or just love. The Powers-That-Be expect bills to be paid, papers to be published, work to be done, in complete ignorance-chosen ignorance-to the pain that is Life.
The truth is, in the end, it’s never going to okay. It never was okay in the first place. Even if it seems to be getting better, the end result is never happy.
All the laugher dies in sorrow. Those margaritas and K401s, that promotion, your BMW… no matter how hard you laugh, how much you drink, or many papers you publish, one day you are going to return to dust.
So, don’t tell me it’s going to be okay. It will never be okay. There is hope, to be sure, but not in this life, not in man alone. We must turn to God.
We must turn to God.
All the laughter dies in sorrow.
We must turn to God.