The Revised Post I was Trying To Place When Blogger Went on the Fritz

There was a picture here, but apparently I missed the fact that the artist didn't intend to have the pictures on his public site viewed elsewhere. Since I have no way of contacting him I decided it would be best to simply remove the picture. My apologies--I am still relatively new writing online and hadn't considered that content (particularly a picture) posted on the World Wide Web would be considered private. I in no way intended to take credit for the pictures--was merely enjoying them. Oh well.

Manila Sunsets.

I recall Thanksgiving evening, my Senior year of high school. I walked by myself out of the main building where several of the missionary families had gathered to share some holiday fellowship, to watch the sunset. It was the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen--with stronger golds, purples, violets, reds, pinks, oranges, and blues than anything I had ever seen, and to this day I don't think I've seen an equal. The thing about Philippine sunsets...at least in Manila, the colors are there because of the pollution. So, its beautiful, but your lungs are being destroyed. Despite this...I loved sunsets in Manila. Our school was on a hill above the city and the smog, and looking out at the Sunset you really could be convinced that life really was that beautiful--that even smog only produced more beauty.

Come to think of it--that was an odd truth about the Philippines--no matter how "bad" something was, it only ended up making things that much better in an odd way. When the torrential rains came, it was bad...but the day after the storm was the cleanest day for the city in a month, and the night after the typhoon, you could see more stars in the sky than you can imagine. One of my favorite memories was laying out on a basketball court with some friends and watching the universe swirl over us.

Good coming from bad--or in spite of bad. Is it foolish optimism that assumes that hope is worth clinging too? Or is there something to it--something that even the sometimes harsh reality of nature bears witness too?

One of my mentors once spoke in chapel on the virtue of Hope: a Distinctly Christian Virtue. One of my favorite messages--I have it on my computer at home and listen to it every now and again because I think he really touched on a truth. It seems inherantly wrong to assume that the worst is and will be our only reality. I don't believe that I have earned some special repreive from the troubles of this world...I am simply convinced that the valley of death will inevitably end in green pastures and cool springs. Christ promised a hope that goes beyond the material concerns of this world--not that our material concerns are unimportant, but we must recognize that they are finite in their scope. The hope of the Christ speaks of deep waters. It involves an answer to the question of the purpose of life, to the fears of death...and when accepted, offers peace unshakeable by even the dying world we live in.

For centuries man has known nothing but fear of the unknown. Death and the gods were to be feared because we couldn't know them, and many of the greatest minds to live tried to understand them better, or to find hope outside of understanding the incomprehensible. The Hellenistic Epicurean Philosophers (old greek guys) suggested that ethics pointed us towards goodness and pleasure--and though they have often been labeled hedonists (those who live for pleasure) they defined pleasure as that which brought us closer to a good life (so they were not into the whole drunken orgy scene). They knew that the Stars and the Planets weren't gods (they believed in gods, but only as very distant, entirely well-intentioned beings who rarely interfered with men). They also believed that the soul was made of matter like everything else in your body. These two beliefs allowed them to logically escape the fear of death and the fear of the gods--because the gods didn't care and death meant nonexistence--so there was no need to fear for tomorrow. Atheists and deists alike have used variations of these reasonings to find hope in an otherwise dismal existence.

Christ's answer to this fear was to offer a reality that showed the false hope just how hollow it truly was: He offered evidence of a real God that was not waiting to destroy humanity, and showed that physical death need not be the end of joy. Instead of an inpersonal god or a god who seemed only to act out the same passions as regular men, Jesus Christ revealed a God both powerful, personal, and intimately interested in us. In salvation, we receive not merely a reprieve from the second death--the destruction of the soul which does not cease to exist--but we also may find a God who has always been present and will always care for us.

So where does hope come in? Besides the hope of salvation from judgement...the knowledge that we are not alone, that God knows us and desires to be known, that death itself is not the end and there is a meaning to life beyond the everyday monotony...this is hope. Hope that this life, which attracts the attention of a loving God, holds promise of more than just suffering or meaningless pleasures. Eternal foundations available to the undulating finite man. A hope that someday, the constant swell and recession that man, who is both spirit and physical being, will finally no longer be a burden--we will cease to war with ourselves. That there will be a joy in release--that though life may be at times a struggle, we toil not in vain for the light will dawn. In this light, the demands of the moment become less daunting for we have hope. In this hope, unshakeable, unbreakable peace may stand in the midst of heartache and worry and be unconerned.