Ancient Ruins

 

“They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated…” Isaiah 61:14

I love ancient ruins. My poetic soul sees them as mysterious and ethereal. It is almost as if they were alive and wanted to tell their story.

However, in our lives, ancient ruins are not majestic and beautiful. They are reminders of tragedies or hardship we have endured. They keep us from living the present in peace and do not allow us to dream of the future.

Most people at some point in their lives go through some tremendous hardship. Some people choose to live among the rubble and never heal. Some sweep away the rubble but leave the surrounding area barren. The ruins are glorified as a reminder but nothing new is built. Surface healing has taken place, but new life hasn’t been really restored. Others sweep away the rubble and build many new structures, but a few of the ruins were never knocked down. Perhaps they have been forgotten, but they are still there. Although, new life surrounds them, the ruins themselves were not restored. Then there are those blessed few who have torn down the ruins and have rebuilt the original structure to be a hundred times stronger and more beautiful than before.

However, we need to realize that we can’t rebuild the ancient ruins ourselves. If we do, they will only topple again. They have to be rebuilt and restored for us. Only the Lord Jesus Christ can take what was in ruins and give new life. Only he “can bestow on us a crown of beauty instead of ashes.” (Isaiah 61:3)

My Lord, My God, rebuild MY ancient ruins and restore MY places long devastated!

It’s This Way

 I recently read a very interesting book. I have always heard about A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, but I never read it.  A few days ago, I was perusing the book sections of a few local thrift stores. I happened upon this book and decided to purchase it. I tore into the book; it was quite fascinating, albeit very depressing.  It’s a Utopian novel with a very negative twist.  It was written in 1932 and prophesized what society would be like 600 years into the future.  The society of which he wrote about was without morals and hope but nobody was unhappy. Ironically, the whole society was structured in a way that made everybody happy. However, to do so, everything had to be controlled.  There were no such things as fathers or mothers and the concept was considered to be an aberration.  All the babies were created in test tubes. From the beginning, all embryos were predestined to be a certain class. They injected or deprived the embryos of certain nutrients depending on what class of people they were predestined to be.  The Epsilons were the lowest class, and the embryos that were predestined to be Epsilons were actually deprived of oxygen to make them more like morons.  Everyone in the society lived off a drug called “soma.”  When something was unpleasant, they just popped a soma.  I could go on and on about the downfalls of the society created in this book. However, the point that I am getting at is that this book was devoid of hope.  There was no redemption. Its purpose was to highlight the horrors that a industrial and commercial based society could produce and just how far things could be taken.

For some reason, I get in these moods in which I read the most depressing things.  The next book on my list to read was the Oscar Wilde novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. I have just begun this book; however, I am going to put this novel down. From what I know about the book, this is also another book that focuses on the horrors inside people but not on redemption.

I yearn for things that include the sense of hope in them. People may say that no such thing exists anymore and that stories with hope are just “cheesy” and “out of date.”  Granted there are stories out there with hope and morals that are fluff and do not address the real issues of today. People are hungry for something that is real but redemptive at the same time. Fairy tales or “Happily Ever After” tales are not what this society needs. They need real people with real tragedies. But at the same time, there has to be an element of redemption. Hope must be visible and attainable.

This need always brings me back to the poet Nazim Hikmet, whom I have mentioned before in a previous post.  Granted I do not agree with the political beliefs of this Turkish poet; he was a communist who was thrown in jail several times for his convictions. Ironically, his poetry was not bitter and angry.  His poetry was full of harsh realities but they always had an element of hope in them. He was a survivor who never gave up. I respect that in him and think that the world needs more of his perseverance and determination.

I would like to share another poem of his that was translated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk and comes from the book Poems of Nazim Hikmet.  The poem is entitled “It’s This Way.”

It’s This Way

I stand in the advancing light,

my hands hungry, the world beautiful.

My eyes can’t get enough of the trees-

they’re so hopeful, so green.

A sunny road runs through the mulberries,

I’m at the window of the prison infirmary.

I can’t smell the medicines-

carnations must be blooming nearby.

It’s this way:

being captured is beside the point,

the point is not to surrender.

Yes, the world is full of horror. Perhaps someone is imprisoned in reality or in their own mind.  Being captured is not the point.  People should not focus on their imprisonment.  The focus should be on not letting your soul die. It is so easy to give up hope to surrender to our problems and just quite trying. But Hikmet encourages us to not to surrender, to live, to carry on with hope.  For if one doesn’t have hope, they are already dead and there is nothing for which to live.

A Common Disease

I have a disease. This disease is a very common disease that lurks around every corner in every village and city in the world. In fact, it has reached epidemic proportions and the people who haven’t been affected by this disease are few and far between. What is this ghastly disease that hardens the heart and destroys the soul?  This disease is a combination of not being thankful for what we have and not being content in all circumstances.Recently I have been reading the book Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.  It is about a hospital in the Soviet Union where cancer patients, usually in the last few months of their lives, go to receive treatment, usually experimental and the details of which are not fully disclosed to the patients.  The book goes into the psychological lives of many of the patients one of whom is Oleg Kostoglotov who was living in exile in a place in the Soviet Union known as Ush-Terek before he was allowed to come to this hospital.

In a chapter called “Memories of Beauty,” Kostoglotov remembers a couple with whom he lived in exile. The Kadmins had a hard life. In a time of suspicion, the wife’s mother with whom they were living allowed a deserter of the army to stay two nights with them without the consent of the couple.  When the deserter was found, he told the government who harbored him.  The wife’s mother was very old and nothing was done to her. However, the couple was considered to be enemies of the state and each was sentenced to ten years of imprisonment.  After their imprisonment, they were sent to distant regions of the Soviet Union for perpetual exile, meaning that not even their bodies could be sent back to their home for burial. However, the husband and wife were sent to different regions. The wife applied to be sent to the place where her husband was.  After several years, she was finally allowed to be with her husband.

Despite all of this suffering, the Kadmins didn’t curse their life in exile.  In fact the opposite was true. Whatever happened to them, they would say “Isn’t that fine? Things are so much better than they used to be.  How lucky we are to have landed in such a nice part of the world?” They rejoiced when they were able to find extra bread. They were ecstatic if they found a beloved book in a book store. They were exuberant about watching the sunset each night. They didn’t let their lives go to pot.  They eagerly learned new things and never wasted their time.  They saw each moment as an opportunity to experience life to its fullest. The wife often said that these were the happiest years of her life. 

Solzhenitsyn goes on to say, “It is not our level of prosperity that makes for happiness but the kinship of heart to heart and the way we look at the world.  Both attitudes lie within our power, so that a man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy, and no one can stop him.”

He further says, “What is an optimist? The man who says, ‘It’s worse everywhere else. We’re better off here than the rest of the world. We’ve been lucky.’ He is happy with things as they are and he doesn’t torment himself.  What is a pessimist? The man who says, ‘Things are fine everywhere but here. Everyone else is better off than we are. We’re the only ones who’ve had a bad break.’ He torments himself continually.”

Obviously, Solzhenitsyn and the couple about whom he writes have found out how to live out the words of St. Paul in action, “Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content.  I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound.  Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.” (Philippians 4:11-12 NKJV)

I mentally and intellectually understand the words of St. Paul.  But I must admit my spiritual maturity is not up to the level where I have learned to live out this verse in word and in deed. 

I am restless.  I don’t quite understand where I am at in life.  I don’t really know what to do with myself. Often I let depression rule my actions and my thoughts. But the Lord sees my struggle and He will honor it.  There will come a time when I will be thankful and content no matter what my circumstances are. Oh, how I long for that day!