India

I've got India on my mind this morning.

For one reason, my oldest brother is there, working most the month of December. I miss him.

Reason #2 is all the stuff in the news lately about bombs, hostage taking, and general chaos.

Reason #3 is THIS VIDEO shared by a former colleague of mine over on Facebook.

The soundtrack is in Hindi and I don't have a direct translation, but it's a short clip encouraging unity, and the images are powerful all on their own. The message is priceless and served as a reminder to me that even when the odds seem impossible, if ONE PERSON will throw impossibility to the wind and BEGIN doing what is just, what is righteous, what is good, others will follow.

It is a basic law of physics that the material world operates on the principle of entropy, meaning that all things naturally decay, break down, and eventually rot or return to chaos. (Well, actually entropy has a much more complicated definition than that having to do with the ratio of useful and non-useful forms of energy, but the bottom line is that there is an inevitable and steady deterioration.)

I recognize that as real in the material world. All the many old dilapidated barns falling down in fields give evidence.

But what of the social and spiritual worlds? Is it inevitable that our culture will corrode and collapse eventually? Is it merely a matter of time before we run out of juice for building/refining civilization and hand things over to total decadence? Does it HAVE to be that righteousness will fade in this fallen mortal world as we strangle on our own pride and sin in the last days?

I do believe there are cycles and trends that will happen, and there is a general climate of chaos over which I have no power. I know from both social analysis and words of prophets that the coming years are going to bring some very bleak days.

But I still believe in the power of individual lives to step up and create amazing pockets of beauty amid ugliness, healing in the face of carnage, holiness right next to depravity.

I have to believe this, or else I could not even get out of bed.

Increasingly ours is a world of extreme contrasts. Each day we decide which side of the line we will put our energies to. Will I throw in with those who look to self interest alone as a measure of worthwhile endeavors? Nope. Not me. I have my own selfish streak, to be sure. But somehow or another I have learned to define every day's success or lack of it by the degree to which I touched a life, made a difference for good. Maybe some of my efforts have all the efficacy of Don Quixote's mad dash for windmills. But I've got to keep trying to move the logs in my way to make this world better. While I completely recognize that acting alone my puny individual efforts are of little value, I really do believe that when we strike out for good others WILL follow, just as surely as there are masses following the paths of depravity and decadence.

So I will continue to pray for my brother's safe return from Hyderabad. And I will continue to push at logs that fall in my way.