Sometime We'll Understand

Not now, but in the coming years,
It may be in the better land,
We’ll read the meaning of our tears,
And there, some time, we’ll understand.

"Sometime We'll Understand" (Maxwell N. Cornelius")

R.I.P. Patrick Mizwicki, 1997-2011

Watching...waiting

I've been wondering if or how to use this image ever since I captured it in New England last summer.  Though it's not a true "widows walk", it reminds me of that lonely roost where the wives of seafarers would pace; watching and waiting, often in vain, for the return of their loved one.

This week, our son Nelson lost a neighborhood buddy in a tragic accident.  At 14, Pat was "too young to die".  Yet he's gone.

At the same time, my dad is continuing his recovery from open heart surgery.  Doing well at age 70, all things considered.  So thankful; especially in light of Pat.

These things send our minds in a thousand directions.  We hug our kids a little closer. We say our "I love yous" a little more freely.  We resolve to let the unimportant things pass a little easier.  To value each day a little more.

We realize we are all watching and waiting; for the return of something lost.   But while we wait, we must live.  With hope.

Molten Glass

"Hast thou with him spread out the sky, which is strong, and as a molten looking glass?"  (Job 37:18)

I don't really know what kind of sky Elihu meant when he challenged Job and his friends with this and several other questions that illustrated how far above men God really is.  But I do love the sky.  A canvas always changing, always declaring His glory.

Union

If you look closely, the peak of our state's capitol rotunda makes a plug for national union (along with the sovereignty of the state).  The more I learn about Lincoln (of which Illinois is "the land of", you'll recall), the more I realize his guiding principle for the nation was union.  While other great causes existed at the time and no doubt inflamed the passions that led to war, it was "staying together" that motivated Old Abe to go to the lengths he did.

How can we apply this today?  When passionate voices cry out for one cause or the other.  Our Southern friends of the past, driven to preserve a way of life, used methods and "moral undergirding" that threatened and ultimately led to secession and war.  Lincoln never blinked in his resolve to preserve the union, believing that only together do we solve the great problems of the day.  And that the very founding principles of democracy were threatened if secession could ever be the answer to the challenges of any particular era.  No, the principles are validated when a people stay together and work those challenges out; however long it takes or however difficult.

I'm with Lincoln.  Because, by the way, he was with the One who said, "A house divided cannot stand..."  And He wasn't speaking of democracy, I shouldn't think.