Being Hopeful in Hopeless Times

As I write this, the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 is in full swing. No one knows if it has peaked yet or where we are on either the slope up or down.

In reflecting on being in the midst of such times, I am drawn to wonder just how terrible this will ultimately be. There is an inherent arrogance in every generation when everyone perceives their times as the best or the worst, the smartest, the most enlightened, and so on. This view is, at best, drastically short-sighted. After all, how can one person judge the best of times or the worst of times not knowing how the times affect every other person on earth in every other time?

These times also cause me to reflect on my part--my purpose--in these times. I don't expect to have a fast answer to this question, as such answers usually only come when reviewing the events in retrospect. So, not knowing my part in any detail yet, I'm forced to speculate with what is at hand at this moment.

I was listening to a podcast on the way home today. The host was interviewing a man who was infected and symptomatic, as was his wife, living in a 500 sq. ft. apartment in New York with their two-year-old daughter. His wife had it worse and spent her days and nights in bed, only coming out to use the restroom. He was only slightly better, yet the work of raising the two-year old fell primarily to him.

As the host interviewed him via a phone call, the man's desperation and despair bubbled to the surface. He was upset to the point of tears a few times. It was sad because he, drawn to think about worse-case scenarios, envisioned dying and leaving his daughter alone. He thought about his daughter contracting the illness from himself or his wife. He didn't seem to see this virus as a momentary diversion. Instead he saw it as the beginning of the end.

What was most sad to me was that I do not feel that. Granted, I am healthy thus far, but the hopelessness was so thoroughly foreign to me. Why?

The only thing I could come up with was that I look beyond this life, considering the best and the worst it has to offer, and I see a better world that has been promised to me. How much better? 1 Corinthians 2:9 tells us that, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.” That's what I'm talking about.

Considering where I am and where this other man was, him awash in a sea of hopelessness and myself buoyed by hope, I was awakened to a sense of the dichotomy. Many consider life, specifically the spiritual life, as being relativistic, defined by individual values. The idea that multiple realities, most of which contrast with one another and could not coexist on the same plane, can not only coexist but must coexist.

It has always been comfortable for me to believe in a singular truth. That seems to be the only way a truth can exist. Narrowly defined, anything that deviates from it no longer is it. Truth corrupted becomes a half truth, and I've always believed that a half truth is a whole lie.

So what does hopefulness look like? It looks like a future placed in the hands of a benevolent Creator, a Creator that has promised to meet our needs, to watch over us and care for us. Consider this:

Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? So if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! (Matthew 7:9-11)

Not knowing or not regarding of the existence of a Creator, specifically one that is not indifferent yet is warm, loving and looks after his children, is the most hopeless of places to exist. It is sadder still to know that people will enter and exit this crisis of hopelessness without pausing to consider who God is. To me, it's like being trapped in a building, wanting to get out, yet refusing to open one door--the one that would lead you out.

 Hope is waiting. Open the door. Let it in.

Tribute to an Old Friend

The year is 1977. I was a member of the RCA Music Club. For those of you that remember the

Columbia House Music Club, it was basically the same thing. Your membership accorded you a number of free albums, the stipulation being that you would buy a number of additional albums over the course of the next few years at their slightly inflated "club" prices. By albums, I mean 12" vinyl LP records, or whatever they are called today.

My initial selections included "A Farewell to Kings", the fifth studio album by Rush. Rush was a Canadian band--just a trio--that I was wholly unfamiliar with at the time. I chose the album based on reasons I cannot remember, assuming there were such reasons at the time. The album blew my mind. 

"A Farewell to Kings" was my entrance to an enduring friendship with Rush. One of my next Rush purchases was in 1981, the year I graduated from high school. "Moving Pictures" is what I consider Rush's magnum opus. It remains one of my favorite albums of all time.

I also had the privilege to see Rush live four different times over the years: 1988, 1990, 2007 and 2010. Twice at Reunion Arena, twice at the venue formerly known as Starplex. 

The great thing about Rush was what they were able to do with just 3 men on the stage. This meant they needed to stretch out to fill more sonic space, so the bass and drums, normally buried under or behind the guitars and other instruments, were right out front. I soon discovered that Neil Peart, the drummer, was one of a kind. He did wonderful and amazing things with his kit. 

Neil died this week on January 7, 2020, reportedly the result of a 3-year battle with a brain tumor. 

Anybody that knows me knows my worldview to be unequivocally Christian. One of the problems with being a devout Christian in our times is that you often have heroes that are unbelievers. You know them for what they give to you, not often thinking about how their lives are much more than the parts you know and love. You wish, ever so fervently, that your heroes were believers, too--that you could share more than the things you admire about them. Yet reality demands you accept the chances that there will likely not ever be such commonality.

Believers of a more Fundamental ilk solve this dilemma by not being fan-boys of secular entertainers or personalities, primarily those who have a worldview that is not identical to theirs. Music, for them, isn't good unless it's indisputably Christian. Movies are patently secular and therefore are evil. In my Christian life, I've slipped into and out of such thought patterns. There have been several times I've gotten rid of all my secular music. At one point in time, I decided to enjoy secular music, yet to be discerning about what kind I listened to. I could enjoy music, yet I strove to not allow it to weaken me morally or force me to compromise my principles. 

Neil was, what he called, a "linear thinking agnostic". He had a disdain for Christianity, feeling he had the ability to be good enough without any threats of judgement. In the lyrics for the song "Freewill", Peart wrote:

There are those who think,That life has nothing left to chance, A host of holy horrors, To direct our aimless dance

A planet of playthings, We dance on the strings, Of powers we cannot perceive, The stars aren't aligned, Or the gods are maligned, Blame is better to give than receive

In other words, he seemed to believe that he had the capacity, through his own moralized choices, to make better decisions than someone whose will was subjected through their submission to a supreme being.

One of the greatest and one of the darkest aspects of how God created us is that He gave us free will. We choose right or wrong, usually hoping that we know the difference. Wrong choices have consequences. Right choices have rewards. That's the price of free will. You are given a choice, yet your choice is not without cost. Also, as Neil wrote in the same song above, "If you choose not to decide, You still have made a choice."

Believing that people make a choice to worship God only because they fear His retribution is not to understand belief or faith at all. It causes me to assume that he either never knew anyone who had a real or meaningful biblical faith or that he never thought it possible that such could be valid. There are people whose faith comes from a place of fear, an attempt to avoid the fires of Hell. The faith I know however comes more from a place of love--a love for a God that I know loves me. Obedience, in this case, is willing and mindful.

It's a strange thing to feel sadness at the death of someone you didn't know. We think we know the celebrities we enjoy. More close to the truth, I think, is the fact that we want to know them, therefore we assume a familiarity that isn't warranted. When they die, we feel a sense of loss that is a little peculiar, yet is real as well.

I feel a sense of loss at the death of Neil Peart. More so, I feel a sense of sorrow. His life, lived not only separate from God, but also in defiance of Him, is over. He has stood before his Maker and now knows the truth. In this loss, I can choose to celebrate the good parts of his life, yet my worldview doesn't allow me to forget the eternal part.

We pave the way for that part in this life, yet not with our skills or our abilities. These are, as the scripture states, burned up like hay and stubble. Those of us who count on our abilities, accomplishments and even our good deeds to gain us entrance into Heaven will find that those things have no weight as we stand before our Maker.

Ultimately, I don't know where Neil Peart will spend eternity. Only God knows the heart, and the fruit we have to judge may not accurately represent what happened with him since he wrote and said all these things. To feel a sense of loss acknowledges that there was a value in that thing (or person) now gone. As many did, I valued what Neil brought into this world. Even if only in a purely secular sense, it made my life a little better.

Thanks, Neil. I hope you to be in a better place.