I'm Better Now

Today has been an emotionally draining day for me.  I won’t go into detail about it, except to say that humanity has pretty well screwed up the planet as well as itself over the generations.  There are so-obvious signs of that everywhere one looks…it’s like looking at a train wreck that never gets cleaned up.

I needed some assurance this afternoon that things weren’t all doom and gloom.  Normally, you might, as a Christian tell me, another Christian, to open my Bible and read some passage from it.  Something out of Job or perhaps the Beatitudes.  Or maybe it would be something that Paul wrote…Romans 8 for example, or Ephesians 1.

I didn’t do that.  Instead, I opened my browser and clicked to YouTube.  I found two videos and watched them.  I came away from that experience with a fresh attitude and an assurance that things aren’t all bad.

What were the videos?

The first one I watched was a performance of the last arias in Handel’s Messiah.  They are performed together and are known as “Worthy/Amen.”  The words to “Worthy” are these:  “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain; and hath redeemed us to God by His blood.  To receive power and wisdom and riches and strength and honor and glory and blessing!  Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto Him, be unto Him; that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb!  Forever and ever!!”

The words to Amen are just one:  “AMEN.”  The numbers go on for over seven minutes, and are some of the most glorious music I’ve ever heard or sung.

The second video?  That was watching the broadcast of the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon, as recorded by CBS and Walter Cronkite & Wally Schirra.  Why that one?  That one event, almost 50 years ago now, was the single most unifying, stupefying, incredible, and indescribable event of my lifetime.  It portrays all that is good about mankind…resourcefulness, ingenuity, guts, passion, drive, intelligence, and commonality.  The landing was the product of armies of people working together, galvanizing behind a common goal for the common good in a time when many were convinced the world was going to hell in a handbasket.

And another thing about the landing…it was on public display for all to see…successful or not.  It was broadcast in real time.  The communications between the spacecraft and the ground were broadcast in real time.  The whole world would know if those men would live to return to earth or die trying.  There’s something special about a nation that will hang its laundry out for all to see…as it happens…in real time…in an event never before attempted and fraught with danger to human beings.  There’s something about a nation that will allow the world to see what democracy and an open society look like and how it operates…warts and all…the good and the bad.

I’m better now.  I can finish the day now.  I can talk with the woman who will be coming to the office in a few minutes to ask me if we can help her with her electric bill…her power has been shut off for non-payment.  I can go home and be at peace with whatever I see on the news.  I can bear the aches and pains of osteo-arthritis and older age.  Because I know that it isn’t all bad…it isn’t all downhill.  God IS.  God LOVES.  God CARES.  And we STILL live in the absolute best place on the planet.