The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart. [Genesis 6:5-6 (NLT)]
In preparation for my mother-in-law’s 100th birthday, I’ve been creating a timeline. After perusing a century’s worth of history, I juxtaposed high points in her life with what was happening in the world around her. During her life-time, my mother-in-law saw the advent of everything from three-colored traffic lights and the Monopoly game to E-Z-Passes and X-Boxes, from pop-up toasters and World Book encyclopedias to microwave ovens and Google, from rotary dial phones and the first airmail to iPhones and email, from the first transatlantic flight and Admiral Byrd’s South Pole expedition to space shuttles, lunar landings and Mars’ probes.
As I searched through the Web, what truly struck me was something I didn’t include in her timeline—man’s ability to be monstrous. It wasn’t just that World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, ISIL, Afghanistan and all the clashes in-between proved that the First World War wasn’t the “war to end all wars.” It was events like 9/11, Boko Haram’s kidnapping of school girls in Nigeria, lynch mobs, and the murders of civil right workers. It was Israeli athletes being massacred by Black September, Charles Whitman shooting 49 people from a tower, Columbine and every other school shooting. It was the Holocaust, the Ku Klux Klan, and genocide in places like Armenia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Dafur. It was reading of 100 years of atrocities—of man’s inhumanity to man—riots, beatings, intolerance, slaughter, and torture. The world my mother-in-law came into wasn’t all that different from today’s hate-filled world. Terrorism is nothing new; ninety-six years ago, a dynamite-rigged carriage exploded on Wall Street, killing thirty-eight and injuring hundreds. The last century had its share of violence, carnage and horror. It’s just that today we’re more efficient in delivering hate and the horrific results of our actions are better publicized.
In a recent Nancy comic (written by Guy Gilchrist), Sluggo asks Nancy if she’s afraid of monsters. “Nah,” she responds, “Wolfman, King Kong, Frankenstein’s monster—I kinda feel sorry for them.” Then she adds, “I’ve never been afraid of the monsters who look like monsters. I’m afraid of the monsters who look like people.” Although I got the timeline done (minus the monstrousness of the last century), my heart is heavy from the task. I wonder how to fight off all those monsters who look like people. Perhaps we simply do it by refusing to become one of them. We must never stop loving God and our neighbor—no matter who he is, what he looks like, where he lives, or what he believes. The Apostle Paul put it succinctly: “Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.”
Although I think I have plenty of faith and love, right now I’m a bit short of hope. Father God, we so desperately need your guidance in the days ahead. Forgive us for the past and fill us with hope for the future.
God is the only one who can make the valley of trouble a door of hope. [Catherine Marshall]
I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. [Romans 15:13 (NLT)]
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As the weather up north cools, our snowbird neighbors have begun returning to their southwest Florida homes. One neighbor recently arrived from Portland, Oregon, a city that ranks third in a list of cities with the most depressing winters. Their weather forecast alternates between cloudy with rain showers to partly cloudy with a 60% chance of rain and that’s not likely to improve! Their early November temperatures will range from highs in the mid-60s to lows in the mid-40s with a UV index that never gets above a 2. On the other hand, our ten-day forecast fluctuates between sunny and mostly sunny with no more than a 10% chance of rain. Temperatures will rise to the mid-80s during the day and fall to the mid-60s at night; the UV index is 6 or 7. In short, Portland is damp, gray and dreary and we’re dry, warm and sunny (and should wear sunblock). On my neighbor’s first day back in our tropical paradise, while relaxing on her lanai with a book, she happened to fall asleep. Upon waking, hearing the mockingbird’s happy song and feeling the warm gentle breeze on her face, she had a moment of confusion and forgot where she was. Feeling incredibly peaceful, relaxed and refreshed, for a moment she actually thought she’d died and gone to heaven!
Saturday morning, my husband and I arrived at a nearby park for our morning walk. Banners and tables were being set up for a fundraising walk. Giving it no thought, we continued onto the trail where we saw signs indicating the event was for suicide prevention. As we returned to the community center, we heard the mournful sound of bagpipes and found the participants gathering, many of whom were wearing shirts in memory of loved ones they’d lost to suicide.
I have a love-hate relationship with my camera and its autofocus. An enormous golden silk spider hangs over the boardwalk we take through the mangroves to the beach. Officially the Nephila clavipes, the female of this species is the largest non-tarantula-like spider in North America. This impressive arachnid has spun her giant orb-like web high above the walkway. She often scares tourists when they glance up to see her suspended above their heads. While I managed to get a shot that of spider, I’d hoped to get a few more of others that have spun their webs down closer to the boardwalk. Autofocus, however, was my enemy. Because their webs were nestled in the trees, the camera looked right through the spiders and focused on the large branches and leaves behind them. My camera focused only on the spider when nothing was behind the creature, but it had plenty on which to focus when pointed at the spiders in the mangroves. The ease of having a small point-and-shoot camera that is so easy to use keeps me loving (but occasionally hating) it.
In the many television tributes to the recently deceased actor Gene Wilder, a scene from the movie Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory frequently has been aired. In it, Willy tells Charlie not to forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he wanted. When the boy asks what that was, Wonka replies, “He lived happily ever after!”
Devotions of the Heart 