July 5th, 2004
 

Reality does not often fulfill our hopes and matching our faith to reality is one of the greatest challenges the disciple faces.

For me personally, my brother born with brain damage when I was ten, a divorce, my Mother’s Alzheimer’s, my father’s neuropathy, my friend RA’s degenerative brain condition, Matt Montzingo’s death—I long for different outcomes and the abundant life Jesus promised for those who follow him.

The C.S Lewis event in San Diego pushed the tension and resolution of longing in the midst of life’s sorrows.

Fernando Ortega’s “Now That You’re Gone” brings a poetic statement of the problem in lyrics penned by Elaine Rubenstein at the death of her brother.

“I knew this life was full of sorrow,
But still I believed
That good times would follow,
That the evil would falter
And true hearts would rise.
True hearts would rise,
That simple dream ended
on the night that you died.”

True hearts do not always rise and evil does not always falter. What are we to do with these grim realities? Lewis and Tolkien each offered resolution, placing the emphasis on the hope of a better world with happy endings.

Lewis put it this way: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

Tolkien believed the gospel is the one true myth and looked for good resolution of every story through what he called “eucatastrophe,” the essence of consolation, a joyous sense of conflicts resolved and justice achieved. He said of the incarnation “there is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true.”

The resurrection affirmed the truth, God is on the move in history. Our hope, our desire for another world is vindicated. The day is coming when sorrows will one day cease, all wrongs will be made right, good times will follow, true hearts will rise and evil will falter forever, darkness replaced with light…

Yours for the pursuit of God in the company of friends, Dick Staub.

PS. And remember, “these are the best of times and the worst of times, but they are the only times we have.” (For Now).

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