Some wars cannot be won, no matter how the battles are fought. Countless times, I've come across these: Pyrrhic victories, where every battle is won, but the cost is too great, or the loss inevitable. These are the worst. More than ever, these drive my competitive spirit, rekindle that flame of conquest I've denied. Why can I not win? Surely I just need more motivation, more study, more understanding... Perhaps that is true, or perhaps another force exists beyond what I can compete with, and impedes my victory no matter the invested effort. Whatever the case, I know I'm not the only soldier in these battles.
I see that others also engage in inevitable defeat, and strive until the bitter end for a lost cause. When I see others endure these losing battles, my empathy cries out. I shudder and cry for them, I pray desperately that theirs will be different - can I help? Can I shift the inexorable tides? And here I sit, suffering that same generational weakness of the pharisees and Israel, asking for a sign, a miracle, a prayer of a chance for the sufferer. My eyes are fixated on the fact that a particular door is closed, and I cannot deign to see whether any other doors might be closing and opening, for myself or them. So I and they continue fighting, keep on winning battles in a losing war, or not, and the outcome appears an injustice forced upon us, when, if only we'd had faith, we might walk the water away from a sea in storm. Sometimes, there is more than life to gain, more than pride to lose, more than selfishness at stake.
So how can I help?
I'm an empathetic person, mostly. When my closest of friends suffer, I suffer also. I've endured fevers and sleepless nights, nausea and visceral agony (mostly all at once) for friends in hurtful scenarios, and they'll never know. I would not add to their pain. I cry out all night for their anguish - oh, may it cease, may it cease - and when it does, or if, I praise the Lord as in the most triumphant of Psalms. In fact, I believe I suffer more for other's angst than my own, for I know that God will get ME through. He always has, however much through the threshing (and the threshing often comes). Would that I had that same faith all the time.
But I read some comforting words in Psalms, today, chapter 46:
God is our refuge and strength,
A very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change
And though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea;
Though its waters roar and foam,
Though the mountains quake at its swelling pride.
...
Come, behold the works of the Lord,
Who has wrought desolations in the earth.
He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth;
He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two;
He burns the chariots with fire.
“Cease striving and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”
The Lord of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our stronghold. Selah.
Beautiful and important words. He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth, even wars in me. Break the bow and cut the spear in twain. My God is a consuming fire, and full of loving grace. Have faith.
I'm praying for you all.
(And this is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith)
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I was reading one of my favorite poems tonight, and was just jarred by its lyric:
LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question….
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
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I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
TS Eliot - The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Such a master of verse, rhythm and rhyme.
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