“The Holiest Words Went With the Most Hating Blow”

The moon at length approached the forest, and came slowly into it: with her first gleam the noises increased to a deafening uproar, and I began to see dim shapes about me. As she ascended and grew brighter, the noises became yet louder, and the shapes clearer. A furious battle was raging around me. Wild cries and roars of rage, shock of onset, struggle prolonged, all mingled with words articulate, surged in my ears. Curses and credos, snarls and sneers, laughter and mockery, sacred names and howls of hate, came huddling in chaotic interpenetration. Skeletons and phantoms fought in maddest confusion. Swords swept through the phantoms: they only shivered. Maces crashed on the skeletons, shattering them hideously: not one fell or ceased to fight, so long as a single joint held two bones together. Bones of men and horses lay scattered and heaped; grinding and crunching them under foot fought the skeletons. Everywhere charged the bone-gaunt white steeds; everywhere on foot or on wind-blown misty battle-horses, raged and ravened and raved the indestructible spectres; weapons and hoofs clashed and crushed; while skeleton jaws and phantom-throats swelled the deafening tumult with the war-cry of every opinion, bad or good, that had bred strife, injustice, cruelty in any world. The holiest words went with the most hating blow. Lie-distorted truths flew hurtling in the wind of javelins and bones. Every moment some one would turn against his comrades, and fight more wildly than before, THE TRUTH! THE TRUTH! still his cry.

                                                                                  --George MacDonald, Lilith

 

 Like the skeletons and phantoms of the Evil Wood that battle night after night in George MacDonald’s novel, Lilith, so many people find a way to distort Jesus’ message of universal love and peace into a message of hate and violence. And the same is often true of the messages of other prophets and religious leaders. Indeed, religion, philosophy, political ideals, and national pride have been used continually to promote animosity and prejudice toward others. "The holiest words . . . with the most hating blow." But what does Jesus actually say: “Love one another.” (John 13:34)

Wonder

 

Yesterday, a group of burrowing owls who have made their home in a large hole near a seldom-used path flew off just as we walked by at dusk. One bird stood watching like a sentry until we passed, and then returned to the hole. The sky was filled with the indescribable colors of dusk. Bird, sky, and hole in the earth.

     A little farther along, the footprints of a mountain lion driven out of the mountains by drought. Resilient nature. Unless someone with a gun comes along.

     Meanwhile, I spend hours scribbling a few words and afterwards revise them repeatedly. Occasionally, my words occupy space in some literary journal. And I wonder: am I taking a place on the page that should go to someone more deserving?