Darkling Plain

"Dover Beach" is one of my favorite poems... the language is rich and vast and captures the sense of the futility of human action perfectly.

...
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
...

This is the human world in which we live.  At the same time someone is awed by the beauty of the majestic mountains, a small child somewhere has been killed by her mom.  Land of dreams... various... beautiful.. new... really has no joy or love or light or help for pain.

When the struggle and flight has gone on too long, or when we are somehow swept up in the confusion of clashing enemies... we seek that One Person with whom we can be Real and True, and who can be Real and True with us.

It is SO TEMPTING to try to find that certitude in another human being, but being frail, no simple humans can avoid the inevitable clashing that occurs no matter how much love is involved.

So, once again I am reminded that my only real joy, love, light, certitude, peace, and help for pain come from the One who suffered and died for me.

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)