Lawrence Hall, HSG
“A World of Light and
Love”
This past weekend was laden with possibilities for joy and
exercise and merriment with friends: Cinco de Mayo (okay, probably not a big
occasion in France), watching the first coronation of a British king since 1937
and of any British monarch since 1953, attending softball games, baseball
games, picnics, high school proms and after-parties, digging in the garden, and
ordinary family gatherings.
And why do old folks slam dominoes down so loudly?
These happy occasions are celebrated by us when we think of
others instead of ourselves. We don’t want to be the King of Great Britain but
we do want him to be “happy and glorious.” We want our kids to win their games
and, more than that, build themselves physically and ethically. We host a
picnic and hope that we have served something everyone wants. We take snapshots
of our graduating seniors and share in their hopes and dreams. We sit in lawn
chairs and talk about old times while the little children chase lightnin’ bugs
in the gathering dusk. Yes, we enjoy these celebrations of innocence but most
of our delight is in giving moments of joy to others.
Some, however, find this difficult. Problems obtain in everyone’s
life: disappointments in relationships or career, jealousies, resentments, waking
up at 0200 replaying in one’s mind the things that appear to have gone wrong
during the day.
There’s an old saying that when things are bad the most
courageous thing you do each morning is to get up out of bed and face the day.
Most people in the worst of times manage to do so.
Tragically, some don’t. The false images of success beamed
at us through advertisements and popular entertainment, the cycles of hate blaring
from talk shows, the politicization even of weather and health care – all these
external drag-downs are difficult to resist.
And we are left wondering why a trip to the mall for a new
swimsuit and maybe a set of beach towels arouses murderous hatred in some
twisted soul. We wonder why an after-prom party involves a casualty list
instead of a guest list. We wonder why folks waiting for a city bus are
targeted for death. We wonder why a male – one could hardly refer to him as a
man – shoots a small child.
C. S. Lewis, in his A Preface to Paradise Lost, reminds
us of the pointlessness of Satan’s rebellion against God, and of our own
potential for rebelling against God by focusing on ourselves:
No
one had in fact done anything to Satan…In the midst of a world of light and love,
of song and feast and dance, he could find nothing to think of more interesting
than his own prestige. (P. 96)
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