A Battle Royale
I am already tired of the controversy. I think of men like Luther who wrote on the "abuses of the papacy" his entire life and I wonder how he kept up that feeling of righteous indignation that he seemed to have--that seems almost necessary to keep up a prolonged battle for reform. I think of journalists that have investigated wrong-doing for years in order to bring it to the light and compare them to my own two-post "Anti China" blog I started and abandoned.
It takes a certain strength of character to wage pitched warfare against an city you may never live to see destroyed. It requires an enormous amount of self confidence and pride--or tremendous faith in God--to see the Goliath before you and not give up the fight.
I suppose one could make arguments pro and con against such self-appointed investigators, reformers and "change agents." But in my mind, this discussion veers closely to the battle that all of us must wage against our sinful nature and our old enemy who tempts us. The battle against sin, that Goliath that threatens our souls, is a battle we dare not give up. The citadels of sin in our lives must be besieged, even if we die in the struggle. Not all men (for good or ill) are able to "fight the system" in this world, but all of us are called to fight the system in our own hearts.
We do have help in this. We have received the Holy Spirit, who even fights on our behalf. We have the Sacraments which sustain our lives and souls. But battle on we must.
1 comments :
I have a theory as to why you are tired - it isn't our fight at the moment. You and I, we aren't in the thick of things with Issues, Etc. Our congregations aren't full of spurned listeners. Right now there is no immediate effect on us here. So we don't get the joys of adrenaline, we don't get the whole fight or flight package of hormones to boost us.
Instead. . . we hear the echoes of the gunfire in the distance. We know what it is, we know what it may entail, we know that it is seemingly coming this way. And we can only wait for it. . . we have to watch, we have to remain vigilant - but we are still mainly waiting.
As that master of the human experience, Tom Petty, once sang, "The waiting is the hardest part."
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