“Dá fhada an lá tagann an tráthnóna” - “However long the day, the evening will come”
A truly immutable fact of life is that time always marshals on. The sun always rises and the sun always sets. Plants grow, people age, life decays. Time carries the seasons along on its steady back and time ravages the creature’s body. Time carries with it the events that are good and happy and fulfilling, and time brings tides of woe and sadness and darkness.
Of all the gifts that time does carry on its wing, one of the most welcome is the evening. The evening is the time to enjoy one’s labor of the day, when the air softens and cools in its comforting cushion. The evening is the time to enjoy a hearty meal with one’s family, a time to calm the tired mind and rest the aching feet. It signals the end of an awful day and allows one’s mind to slough off the stresses that the long, harsh light can bring.
It is the time of harvest, when the fruits of the summer’s work are enjoyed, a time for revelry and joy, a time of sweet and calm contentment. It is a time of joy and bounty, a time of refreshment and contemplation. It is a time of thanksgiving, a time to look back while gazing intently forward. It is a time of waning energy, when Creation prepares itself for slumber and the coming day.
It is a time of sublime and wondrous art, when the sky becomes a celebration of light and color, when shadows melt together and the soothing rays of the setting sun bathe the earth in a lovely cloak of red and stunning orange. It is the time when the noble beasts as one say their sonorous goodnights to one another and to the trees and stones, the air and grass, the lakes and lordly sky.
In Christ, it is a time of completion and finishing of a lifelong race. It is a time of joy and glory, when the glorious light of heaven is so tantalizingly close, a time of preparation for the necessary sleep before the everlasting glorious day.
No matter how long the dreary day, time marches on and the glorious evening surely will come.
I break God’s Law, I impugn His Name, I spit on His Mercies and I do not love my fellow urchins. I am ungrateful, irresponsible, and I dwell too much on wickedness. There is nothing beautiful in me and nothing that is truly loveable.
Accumulation of anything usually never happens all at once. Money does not grow on trees and most people never win the lottery. Land is never free and rare is the person who is bequeathed large tracts of land at the untimely death of some long lost aunt. Knowledge is always difficult to obtain and you might just have to fail 1000 times at something to achieve that one ground-breaking success. Yet, castles are built, money is earned, land is acquired and knowledge is learned.
He does not quit when the 999 tries nets him zero success. He persists when unforeseen expenses empty his bank account and when that land he saved up for turns out to be sitting smack in the middle of a flood plain.
It is amazing how much wasted air and energy is expended when we talk. As human beings we say a great amount of words and express many ideas, but how much is it really worth? How many trees are felled and ink spilt on worthless ideas and worthless communication? How many keystrokes and pixels simply take up energy because the ideas expressed are simply not worth the time and effort? We are people who love sharing ideas and spreading information. But what is it all really good for?
There is a scene in Pixar’s “A Bug’s Life” where the evil villains, the Grasshoppers, are chilling under their sombrero hangout when Hopper, the gang’s ringleader, hears grumbling about going back to Ant Island to gather “The Offering” from the puny ants. Hopper jumps over to the bar in typical grasshopper fashion, grabs a seed from their large seed dispenser at the Grasshopper bar and throws it at the complaining party. He asks the guilty one if it hurt (it did not), throws another seed (“are you kidding” being the response) and then releases the whole bunch of heavy seeds onto the whiner, crushing him. The moral of this story? “There was that ant who stood up to me … if one ant stands up, they all might stand up”.
Just as unity is vital for ants, strings, voters and warriors, it is so for followers of Jesus as well. We are one body, in Christ. The Church, Jesus’ Bride, is not made up of a bunch of self-autonomous parts. We are joined and knit together, a unified, redeemed Body. Yet, “unity” can be, and in our pluralisticly philosophical and cultural milieu, often is, misleading. Believers in Christ cannot be unified with those who deny the insanely radical and thoroughly exclusive nature of Christ and the Cross. Believers in Jesus cannot be unified with those who call Jesus a god but who do not ultimately bow their collective knee in abject submission to the Lamb. Believers in the very Son of God cannot be united with those who deny the everlasting Love of Jesus and Grace of God. Yet, with true believers and followers of Jesus, the Christian IS unified and this unity finds it strength not in the collective might of those unified but in the One who is the Great Unifier. This unity and strength is for His Glory and for our Good. It is not just strong, it is everlasting.
The funny thing about this aspect of Reality is that you cannot change a thing by changing the appearance of a thing. Perception does not dictate or determine the reality of a thing. The emperor really was naked. A pig with a golden ring in its snout is still a pig. You can make a goat look like anything but a goat, yet the goat remains a goat.
Animals can be tamed, physical forces can be harnessed, but no man can control, tame, or harness the tongue. Furthermore, while the tongue is exceedingly destructive, that little muscle anchored to the back of the mouth is not the problem. Words themselves are simply verbal expressions of the thoughts that flow from our hearts and minds. And, as is said in Scripture, the heart is exceedingly wicked, who can know it? The reason the tongue is so damaging is because our hearts and minds are so sinful! The tongue is that powerful conduit through which our sin is too often conducted and communicated. Can you imagine how much better everyone would simply get along (much more honor God!) if we could learn how to “say little?” Furthermore, this speech is not limited to only audible, verbal communication utilizing language and particular speech patterns fashioned with pressurized air. Blogging, Twittering, Digging, Texting, writing, typing, gesturing and signing all fall under this heading. Sometimes what is not “said” is best said.
I must admit, I am really bad at this. I talk way too much and listen way too little. Fortunately, God is using my wife, a very good listener, to sanctify me. Her ability to listen allows her to sympathize with people better than anyone I know. Should we not all strive to be like that? Are our words and our thoughts really that much more important than the words and thoughts of others? “A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion” (