December 23, 2010
It is almost Christmas here in Sacramento, California and today we put up my collection of lighted houses upon the long shelve above the kitchen windows. While the joys of baking chocolate chip cookies and the sound of children's laughter fill my daytime, there are also those things that weigh on the heart and soul in spite of the anticipated Holiday.
I have found the world at my fingertips through Facebook. Each day I read the posts from around the world: Ghana, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tonisia, England, Australia, and the USA. And I check the news blogs to read the current events. Many of them reveal death and destruction, disease and chaos, storms and wars, that leave a trail of sorrow and grief around the world.
Today my friend who lives in Gaza was attending a meeting and asked me to comment on his photo. If you don't already know it, Gaza is a living prison literally walled off from the rest of the thriving world. My friend was born there and has lived in Gaza his entire life. The pictures on his posts reveal surroundings of the horrible destruction of war; buildings leveled to the ground by bombs and grenades, and mounds of rubble littering the streets and where the walls left standing are defaced with graffiti. The scene is a taste of hell on earth but yet, appears a picture of him with a smile on his face and a camera in his hand walking seemingly untouched by the chaos which surrounds him. Without knowing it my friend has given me renewed hope in the profound ability mankind possess to overcome adversity and rise above the 'ashes'.
America is at war. The war is within as much as it is outside its borders. The fight within is one between good and evil. After the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers in NYC, our government decided to attach Iraq. Since then thousands are dead in both countries and while we were pulling our troops from Iraq, another president decided to send them to Afghanistan. There has been no end to the sorrows these wars have caused our citizens and the people of the countries we invade. Death and destruction are a daily occurrence filling the airwaves with stories of bombings and killings around the globe. I wonder if I will live to see the end of war but in my heart I feel we are just warming up to the Great War that will end all of it. God in his wrath is holding back the destroying angels to come at a time when mankind will be ripe with iniquity and that time is very near at hand.
