Of Whom the World was not Worthy . . .

The purpose of this post is very simple. 

I am recording my grief and confusion that the paradigm shift I wrote about before is taking longer and having more turns in it than I originally anticipated. 

The catalyst for this particular post is the 2024 presidential election. The candidate I favored lost, and the one one that I found incomprehensibly repulsive won. 

I was feeling as if it would be close, but the outcome was a little more in the reprobate's favor than I was expecting. 

It feels like that trope in horror movies where the putatively defeated monster/villain suddenly roars back to power and life. In the real world, there is no guarantee that the second half of that trope - i.e. the final defeat of the villain is completed - will ever actually occur. 

One advantage of loving and reading history is that we are able to judge the final results of trends, and see if we can trace the influences and factors that led to those results - AND most importantly this means we are reading those factors with the benefit of hindsight. In the real world, we don't have that luxury. Instead, we have to apply our beliefs and values as we see fit, and (in my view) in harmony with Providence. Yet we do not have any guarantee it will end well for us. 

In Hebrews 11, the "good endings" are first described. 

Then the author goes on to describe those who suffered rather than gaining great things: "Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurection. Other suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented - of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground." (Hebrews 11:35-38, NRSV) On Good Friday, the disciples themselves had no certainty that Easter Sunday was coming. That triumph was all seen only in retrospect, once the events had finished unfolding.

Right now, I feel like one of those from Hebrews who suffered, or like a follower of Jesus on Holy Saturday. I don't know what's coming next. I want to be like Dietrich Bonhoeffer - handwriting his "Von guten Maechten" poem in the darkness of a prison cell, just days before he was shot and his time on Earth was ended. . . . Yet I also fear I will not be able to follow his example. I want to hold on to that sense of Good Providence - Good Providence that will be with me, whatever happens on this grieving and complicated world. So . . . all I can do right now is find myself holding onto the Jesus Prayer, when all else fails. Breathing slowly. Repeating over and over: "Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."