Sunday, December 3, 2017

SULPHUR OR SWEETNESS

     Imagine the scenario. We are looking at a scene of great bustle, a room filled with angels with rolled up sleeves carefully ladling out material from barrels placed in front of them, ensuring that every little soul that passes their station gets  a percentage of it. The scent of the room is floral, smelling of aromatic flowers and spices, replete with the gentleness of love, mercy and compassion.
     Those small white vaguely human looking shapes passing these angels are the souls of the soon to be born. They are given all that we need to make Earth a place of love and honor, of compassion and mercy, of gentleness, of peace, of concern for all humanity and not only for oneself.
     Yet underneath it all, every once in a while there is a nasty scent of sulfur wafting thru and under it all. Every once in a while once of those little white shapes wanders off following the sulfur and it ends in a nasty smelling room, reeking of evil, of darkness. Here the dark angel, a fallen angel, ladles wildly, angrily, as he tries to fill the soon to be born soul with all that is evil in the world.
     These souls in both rooms, both scenarios, are to compete on this earth for the souls that came before and after. Which will win? The gluttony, the evil, the greed, the envy, the war mongering, the increasing distance between haves and have nots or will it be the compassion, the safety nets that care for all, the love that will convince us to work for people and not for ourselves and only ourselves. Which will it be? Will these souls be strong enough to withstand the temptations of evil in all its forms? Will they be clever enough to discern those dark souls who wish to force harm upon the face of this earth or will they be fooled?
     It is always easier to see evil and fault in others. We can roll the names of foreign leaders who have crossed the lines, or just know they are there whether we know their specific names or not. Duterte. Mugabe. Terrorist leaders. Neo Nazis. Stalin and Lenin. Putin. The cartels. Trump et al. And yes, I purposely insert Trump there for I believe he is ultimately a spoiler, one who works only for himself, who cares nothing for others, only his bottom line and the reinforcement of his power. Two top aides of Trump are co writing a book called "Let Trump be Trump" and read that book, look at its excerpts and then wonder what it is that makes people feel it is okay to work for a madman, for a personification of evil, of greed, of envy, of dishonor and falsehood. It is because we lose sight of the real truth in the world but at least Comey has it straight now.
     “But justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” Amos 5:24
     It is accompanied by a paraphrasing of a Buddhist line.
     
      "Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun; the moon; and the truth."
     People, we have to make a choice. We have to choose between a man and his minions who represent dishonor, falsehood, greed and gluttony, envy, war mongers and all the rest and between those who will serve society honorably, for the good of all. It will be a society where we do not honor those who chase after the disadvantaged, throwing them into the modern day equivalents of camps and cattle cars, rending asunder families, allowing disease, sickness, hunger and pain to grow within the ranks of our society.
     We have allowed these damaged souls to gain an upper hand at this point but we must, as the Bible says, "gird our loins" and be ready to fight the evil, to improve our world, to prove worthy of all that we were given and for all those to come after us. In the future, what will be our evaluation? What will be the sum of all that we leave behind?
     The souls of beauty and aromatic riffs or the scent of sulfur, of those who feel they can talk evil, be evil, act evil, and get away with it. The lives of those unable to fend for themselves are upon us. We cannot shirk that responsibility and if we try, well, woe upon us. Me? I am afraid for and of the future. And you?





No comments:

Post a Comment