Down the Rabbit Hole

Down the rabbit hole, a metaphor for the beginning of what may at first seem to be an interesting time, but in reality, is the beginning of something truly crazy.  Such was what Alice encountered in her visits to Wonderland in the novel from which the phrase is drawn, and such is the world we live in today.

A colleague remarked the other day, "There's so much breaking bad news, that the media can't keep up with it, even in a 24 hour news cycle."  I wanted to protest, but he's right.  Israel and Hamas kept violating cease fires until this latest one and thousands of Palestinians and a handful of Israelis are dead.  The psychological scarring on both peoples though, that will last a lifetime.  Ukraine is still on fire, Russian backed rebels fighting against the government in Kiev, which in turn overthrew the Russian backed government in Kiev.  The rebels brought down an airliner full of innocent civilians...and then mined the area so that evidence could not be recovered.  For the Netherlands especially, this was difficult, as they lost proportionately as many people as the United States did on 9/11.

The drums of war once again beat in the heart of the American political machine, back to Iraq once more, because we left and things fell apart; ISIS has risen as a more vicious group than Al Quaeda had ever been (beheading even AQ's emissary).  American soldiers are to return soon.  On one hand, I want to scream and rage at this idea, but on the other, it's needed...ISIS intends to eliminate all of Iraq's Christians and Yazidis.  Faced with the growing threat of ISIS to the region, even Turkey has begun to fly bombing missions in support of the Kurds, their generations' long enemies...indeed, it is only military action by the US, Turkey, and Kurds that saved forty thousand Yazidis from being forced to die of dehydration on a mountain recently.  Meanwhile, ISIS continues to behead children and journalists for the world to see, and posts videos of mass executions of Iraqi Army soldiers.

In Africa, the ebola virus rampages almost unchecked.  Over a thousand have died thus far since the initial outbreak that has spread across multiple countries, despite the closing of national borders.  Many superstitious types have begun to burn western backed clinics as possible sources of the disease, allowing it to spread unchecked even further.

At home, racial tensions seem to be simmering to the fore again, courtesy of the execution of an unarmed black teen by a white cop in Ferguson, Missouri.  Police have been overzealous in their attempts to crush the riots, and military grade weapons have been used not only on protesters but also on the media.  Story after story has come out of that town where black neighborhoods are being shelled by the police with tear gas, where reporters are being arrested at gunpoint for doing their jobs by the people who have sworn an oath to defend the weak, where being black in America can get you killed.  As a professional in the criminal justice field, I've followed things there closely, and more than once, I've wept.

Meanwhile, also here in America, one of the world's greatest comedians was unable to fight off the darkness that plagued him any longer.  Robin Williams took his own life, and in so doing, triggered a new awareness about mental health, and how sometimes, a suicidal person just can't control their actions.  Many celebrity suicides don't touch the world, but with Robin Williams, everyone had a fond memory of him, of some moment where he had given them hope.  Be it his inspiration of an entire generation of teachers and professors in Dead Poet's Society, or for those who lost a loved one in What Dreams May Come, or even a laugh from his numerous comedies at a time when it was most needed.

To be honest, this entire post is inspired by the fact I just saw The Photo.  It's the one image from 9/11 that thirteen years later, I can't help but think of...a man, tumbling to his death.  Choosing suicide over death by smoke inhalation or flames.  A theologian, Mark D. Thompson of Moore Theological College, perhaps put it best about the 'falling man' as the image is known, "perhaps the most powerful image of despair at the beginning of the twenty-first century is not found in art, or literature, or even popular music. It is found in a single photograph."

My last post was a snarky film review of God's Not Dead.  Looking at our world, at all the evil that is so visible within it, it would be easy to side with Kevin Sorbo's character and say that God's dead, that He wouldn't allow all of this to happen.  In a world where jumping a hundred stories to one's death is preferable to facing what is inside of a building, how can we not despair?

And that, my friends, is when I pause and need to listen.  Sometimes faith's not a fire, it's a soft glow.  It doesn't chase the monsters away and make everything better, as much as it provides comfort, despite the monsters.  It burns within us and tells us that we are not alone, no matter how we may feel or how it may seem.  It tells us that others are facing this too, and that they can do it, and we can do it.  "Faith Manages" in the words of the fiction Brother Theo from Babylon 5.

The question then becomes, do we just merely seek to survive this world where despair seems to be so attractive an option, or do we want to thrive?  Because personally, I agree with Casting Crowns, we were made to thrive.  So perhaps, when we see that frazzled person, give them a smile.  Hold the door for someone.  Let the other person turn across the road before you go at the light.  Do something small; it's often the little things in life that remind us to have faith, and remind us there is hope.

Thank you Lord Jesus Christ for that.