Many people in this world deplore about things happening around us and truly many dishonorable and disreputable things are happening around us to convince people that what they are saying is true. Everything is decentralized and there seems to be nothing we can trust in or depend on. The standard for everything is brought down to the effect that there seems to be no clear distinction between good or bad, true or false. In this situation, many people shout out the hails for the change and eagerly accept the present conditions the most desirable thing we can expect out of the human institutions; and they say that to think about the truth or center is delusional and imaginary.
There are many, however, who are worried about the present situation and feel sorry for the ways things are done. They believe that there are truth out there in the world and there are things which is valuable that we must defend to keep.
Something Worth Fighting For
In the story of “The Lord of the Rings,” Samwise Gamgee beautifully expresses the value we must seek for, the things worthwhile to be defended. At the desperate moment of the failure of the mission of destroying the ring, he encourages Frodo to move on and carry out the mission, sacrificing himself because there are things worthy to keep:
Sam: It’s like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it’s only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it’ll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something even if you were too small to understand why. But I think Mr. Frodo, I do understand, I know now folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
Sam: That there’s some good in the world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.
When we look around the world and think about what the end would be like, we cannot imagine a good and happy end out of the stories we are writing in our present time. Everything says that the end would be terrible and destructive: the change in climate, the atomic bombs, ISIS, Terrorists, the collapse of moral values, the natural disasters, etc. All these things are shouting out the end of the world as in Ezekiel:
Ezekiel 7:5 “This is what the Sovereign Lord says:
“‘Disaster! Unheard-of disaster!
See, it comes!
6 The end has come!
The end has come!
It has roused itself against you.
See, it comes!
7 Doom has come upon you,
upon you who dwell in the land.
The time has come! The day is near!
There is panic, not joy, on the mountains.
The mountains, rivers, oceans, trees, flowers, birds, animals, fish, and all the things on this earth are currently shouting out “Death, Destruction, Doom.” There seems to be nothing worthwhile to keep or defend. Which is the way we should follow? What is a good thing to do? Is there anything we can do to make this world better? In terms of Samwise, is there anything worth fighting for? Is there anything good and true left for us?
The Evidence that We Still Have Chance
Even though it seems to be dire and gloomy enough to quit and let ourselves fall freely down to the bottom, still we have another chance. There is still a reason we have to fight. There is still a reason we have to make efforts not to fall. It is because still we have something good in us. Here what I intend to do is not to pinpoint a certain thing as good, but to prove that still we have good in us and for the good in us we must make efforts.
Then in what respect can we say we have good in us? The answer is simple: the fact that we feel that there is something wrong shows that we still have a certain standard for something good. If we have no hope at all, we would not be able to think of something good, but there would be only despair, or dull indifference or carelessness. Nothing would be able to stir us into wakefulness from this stupor if there is not any good we have to fight for. Our heart would be empty and hollow like a deserted house crumbling down and it would not be disturbed or shaken by anything.
But when we see miserable and deplorable things happening around us, we feel sad and exasperated, muttering to oneself, “this is not right.” The fact that we know something is wrong shows that we still have vague but undeniable standard for good or bad. We must hold on to this in us and spell out what it is in us which allows us to be angry and frustrated because this is the point from which we can make our journey in finding the truth. About this good which is imprinted in us, the Bible says:
Ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.
The bible defines that the thing in us which makes us what is good or bad is “eternity.” Even though it is so short and simple a word, it contains everything we must know about ourselves. Eternity means something that never changes and something that we must seek for, that is, the truth. The sense of truth is already given in us by God and therefore we can tell good from bad and truth from falsehood, enabling us to make a moral judgment for the things we experience.
People from different ages and different time have different words or expressions, but they have always been aware of the truth which moved their heart to do something that they thought was right. With this eternity or truth in their heart, they could imagine a world where only truth prevails like paradise. Some called it “Utopia,” and others imagined it to be “the Garden of Eden.” It was called with many different names in many different places, but it was the place everybody was yearning for. But that yearning and longing for the land of eternity which does not seem to exist, hence the name Utopia or the land of “Nowhere,” reveals that we have something inside which works in us as standard through which we can tell truth from falsehood.
The Eternal World, the Kingdom of Heaven
The land of “Nowhere” is a land of our imagination and the land we must go to. God gave us the sense of eternity or truth in heart to teach us that we should eagerly seek after the land. Everything seems to be so gloomy and whispers to us, “You must be different. You must find out the land of nowhere.” God who set the eternity in us gave us the bible so that we can know the direction to get there.
When it seems that we are at a loss in a dead-end, God teaches us that we still have hope. Just like Scarlett O’Hara said in the novel, “Gone with the Wind,”
“After all, tomorrow is another day!”
― Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind
Another day is given to us that we may seek God and the Land of Truth. And as long as another day is given to us, we are spared from the Day of Judgment and we are given another chance to know the truth. To teach us the truth and to take us to the land of Eternity God came as man in the flesh. Now seek Christ Ahnsahnghong and Heavenly Mother New Jerusalem who gave us the yearning for the eternity so that we might find them to receive the eternity.