Saturday, November 3, 2012

Song of Hope...

"To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted." - Titus 1:15

 I found this true, time and again; especially when exposed to secular media, films and music. Numerous were the times I heard the Lord sing and coo to me through the din. Numerous too, were the times my mind was dulled from perceiving the evil therein. 

I like to believe that I am protected and my Father sings songs of gladness over me. 


Some of the most beautiful lessons I learnt were from sources far, far from religious or spiritual.

The most distant memory that comes to me (considering that my memory is like a sieve) is of my watching the undeniably morbid movie, The English Patient. Lust, adultery, fornication and lies abound in that love-in-the-time-of-WWII film. But this is what I remember most- the scene where the lady-much-desired and her (cuckold) husband were flying their two-seater propeller jet to their dug-out site in the North African wasteland, where the lady's lover was waiting to be picked up. The affair was broken off by then and the husband knew that he was cheated upon, though he did not reveal it to his wife or the friend/lover. As the plane descended, the husband's feral rage took over and he tried to drive the jet into the lover, hoping to kill all of them together. Instead, the husband dies instantly, the wife gets mortally wounded and perishes in the desert and the lover dies much later, a victim of euthanasia, broken-hearted, burnt beyond recognition and a traitor. The film treated the entire story very romantically... but all I heard, was a still soft voice saying- The wages of sin is death.

God did not need to meet out their punishment. Their own flawed decision set into motion the wheels of fate which they could not stop and led to their untimely destruction, and that of others as well. I felt sorry for them... I really did; but it brought home to me the truth that death was not just metaphorical; it was real and concrete. 

Then there was Avatar. Who can forget the memorable Na'vi greeting- 'I see you.', which is to see into another, to truly look into their souls. How poignantly it reminded me of Psalm 139 ...

Then there is the other side of the spectrum. When evil warps the imagination, nothing then can remains innocent. Before predators became, there was the thought, the fantasy that foreshadowed it. There are those who after encountering the Light, now practice extreme abstinence, not out penance but out the desire for protection. It doesn't  take much to awake the old demons...

The Lord often does deliver them but sometimes he desires to strengthen their will by asking of strong measures.

St. Augustine knew of it. St Paul remarked of it when he spoke of the thorn in his flesh . 

But take heart, in the end, Grace and one's love of Jesus will see one through...