Is It My Imagination?

As I have been watching the news recently I get the feeling like I am watching some Sci-Fi disaster movie. It's not quite Cormack McCarthy's The Road, but it has a feel to it.

• There are earthquakes all over the place with the wailing and death and overwhelming grief every where we look.
• There are floods and tornadoes all over the Mid-West.
• Don't forget global climate change which may actually be helping cause the previous and many others including the next one.
  
• There are food riots and shortages where there aren't just high prices.
• The gas prices sound like doomsday projections with truckers in Europe throwing appliances off an overpass to protest the trucker who was trying to get through the blockade.
• And now tomatoes are the latest food to fall prey to being dangerous or even lethal.

If I were one of those religious fanatics (of just about any stripe) who see the end of the world coming, I would probably look at these and see the end of the world coming. We sit and look around us and see more problems than there are easy solutions. We see problems that potentially could start more wars than we know what to do with. One has already been started at least partly over access to oil in Iraq.

What's next?

Unfortunately it is in times like these that we can easily fall into despair, fear, anger, hopelessness, and just about any emotion. It is in times like these that we can begin to think that the end of the world is near. It is in times just like these that the Book of Revelation was written. Now I don't want to get into any of the controversies of the End Times Theologies based on this book and others like it.

But what I do want to do is remind myself that the overarching, underlying, and completely surrounding message of that book is hope. Then you add to that the power of faith and you are called into patient waiting. Why? Because the world is just as the world is. And God is just as God is. And God is still right where God has always been. In heaven.

And we Christians would add, within us through the Holy Spirit.

Does that mean we are immune to the problems of the day? Absolutely not. Does that mean that we can escape higher gas prices, the rumbling of the earth or the floods that arise out of nowhere? Of course not.

But it does mean that even in the midst of all those there is God. And that God loves me unconditionally. And that God will guide us in whatever ways are possible to make it through these times with our faith strong and our hope fulfilled.

At times just like this I am consistently reminded of the powerful and comforting words God gave to Julian of Norwich. Julian was a true and deeply faithful mystic of the church. She wondered how good can happen in the midst of sin that can destroy God's very own creatures. His words to her still ring out as words of eternal promise. They were spoken within a Christian context but I think they can speak of that deep faith that ultimately says "Yes!" to life and God and hope, no matter what the name given to those.

I make all things well,

and I can make all things well,

and I shall make all things well,

and I will make all things well;

and you will see for yourself

that every kind of thing will be well.

...And in these words God wishes us

to be enclosed in rest and peace.