Going My Way

And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.  — Hebrews 11:39-40

"Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker.  I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker.  In which case you also were meant to have it.  And that may be an encouraging thought."  — Gandalf speaking to Frodo, Fellowship.

History can be deceptive.  The past is ever with us in effects and consequences, in what has been built and created as well as in what has been lost.  The Epistle to the Hebrews goes on to speak of so great a cloud of witnesses which observes, at least metaphorically, the race that you and I run today.  I believe it is more than a metaphor, but only because I believe I am less real than I will be when this worn and tattered tabernacle is laid aside to return to dust and ash.  For the moment, I am clothed in transience.  

We sometimes look around and wonder what we can do.  We are so small, so individual, in a world of seven billion — a number that, even for one rather numerically inclined, is almost incomprehensible.  There is a natural human tendency to want to be part of a group, to rally support, to find others to stand beside us and amplify our voices.  It's easy to forget that the group — large or small — is only so many individuals, that the amplification comes not from one large megaphone but a multitude of small mouths, speaking in harmony and unity.  A body is a harmony of disparate parts; even more, it is individual cells, working together, each doing alone and only, even blindly, what it can:  living by faith.

Looking at a river, the source and the mouth are the two points that vary the least.  They are the most determined and fixed parts.  All along the course between the only constant is change.  History has two fixed points, the Alpha and the Omega, that are really One.   My life, as yours, comes from Christ and returns to Christ.  In between, a lot is up to us. 

Like Frodo, we must bear the burden that has been laid upon us by those who have gone before us.  Even if they stumbled, took a wrong turn, failed us in some way, we gain nothing by assigning blame, complaining, or acting like victims of circumstance.  We know — or should know where we are headed.  If we are off course, we need to correct it, i.e., Repent, ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.  We can change our minds, straighten our thoughts, alter our focus. 

That no one else is willing to choose the right course offers me no excuse.  We, as a nation, as a people, as the human race have something we need to cast into the fires of Mount Doom to unmake fate and find destiny.  Yet, if all the rest of the seven billion riders cling to their precious, may we be a few stubborn stones or a shoal or a boulder standing and pushing history even ever so slightly in the direction it needs to go — the direction that it must go.  The Omega is as unchanging as the Alpha.  

Besides, I have something that needs to go into the fire myself, so it's on my way.