H,
I know it stings on
this side of reality. The world seems, especially if you are open to the idea
of the inherent value of every human soul, full of tragedy covered up by a
blanket of false optimism and sleek advertising. They say the world is better
off than it was a hundred years ago but the collective human soul still longs
for the more that prosperity cannot give and poverty cannot dignify. On opposite
poles of the development spectrum there is a longing for the sort of purpose
that makes life meaningful in the face of tragedy or triumph.
We cannot however diminish
the wrong wrought by poverty, disease and inequality. There are people whose
existentialist questions are toward the next meal or the next shed for shelter.
There are those who live in fear of bombs dropping on them and guns blazing at
them. A number of lovely girls were kidnapped around our neck of the woods and
we do not know where they are or what their fate is. In a hundred years maybe
we have moved from kettle to electric kettle but we have not and cannot dislodge
the evil within the human soul.
These are the answers I
look for in God. I do not know that I can look to every tragedy and find an
answer. It is easy to look at your own life and get that old Pentecostal fear that
ingratitude will breed an end to your relative prosperity. Yet there is no
relative prosperity in the body that is one. The bible tells us that perfect
glory is the meeting of all in God. Community in the best way possible is when
we all become shining representations of our heavenly father. This is no man
left behind on an eternal scale. We mourn with mourners because the bell tolls
for all of us. We are in this together and the whole picture the gospel
presents is of one humanity edging towards a final destiny in God. There are no
fences to put up, no defenses against the flood and no escape from being our
brother’s keeper. We have a responsibility to remember that the human story is
linked and so are our hearts, one to another.