Sunny Side Up Sept.24, 2003 �2003, Kathleen Gibson Never stop testifying to truth I'm a person of strong Christian faith. But some days, adrift in the current of perplexing societal change, I wish God had made me an ostrich. I could then, with impunity, bury my head in the comforting sands of deliberate ignorance. Some days, I do that anyway. I feel like Alexander in Judith Viorst's book 'Alexander's Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.' Australia, he knows, is 'down under.' Perhaps a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day here would be a fabulous, very good, not at all bad day down there. During a string of very bad days, Alexander repeatedly threatens to run away to Australia. I agree. Fleeing seems the best idea of all when you don't know what else to do. I don't watch the evening news anymore. By ten, I've heard those stories three times. The world is at war, the climate is bizarre, new diseases are ravaging the planet and the institute of marriage is going to hell. The universe isn't getting much right these days. Our dominoes are tripping over each other in their headlong race to tumble. Somehow I think even the ostrich must feel this, even down under, even in Australia. I have a childish urge to do what I did as a child: go running to tell Dad and plead with him to fix it. But I'm a grown woman, and even should he long to there are some things a dad can't fix. He can't fix a world that refuses to learn the chilling lessons of history and rushes pell-mell into whatever course of action seems right at the moment. Or a country where the morality of the minority rules because of the majority's smug complacency. Mostly, he can't fix people who ignore eternal dictates and forge their own definitions of right and wrong. I spent time today weeping for the tattered moral fabric of my country. Repenting my own apathy. Ruing my insistence on rose colored glasses. Lamenting my confidence that someone else-with a louder voice, a more notable presence-will stand up for what I believe in. It's raining as I write. Even the sky weeps. And though we've prayed for rain, this is too little, too late. My office is cold. I walk down the hall, flick the thermostat up a notch. In the kitchen I pick up a candle in a glass jar, hold it with both hands. The glass is warm. I move it close to my face, so I can feel the heat. A mirror captures my passing reflection. Middle aged. Plain. Red eyes. The candle I'm carrying illuminates my face. The effect startles me. My sharp angles are softened, almost beautiful. It comes to me suddenly, what to do. What all people of faith must do in perplexing times. Testify to truth. Here, there, and everywhere. With tears in our eyes and a candle in our hands, so that the Light we carry softens our own hard angles, first. |
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