A new dawn

Photo by Todd Trapani on Unsplash

The old prophet reminds us that we've been here before. Over and over again:

“The ones who sit in darkness, where death casts a great shadow…”

And that's definitely us caught in the midst of the most utter madness.

Afraid we're going to be drawn into it somehow, that atomic weapons will be used, and the massive carbon emissions released by this absurd and destructive outbreak of warfare will deepen the climate catastrophe.

What do we do?

We don't know where to begin.

I'm thinking of Jesus at this moment, living in obscurity I guess, wondering the same: “Where do I begin?”

Just like Cornelius Cardew,, the avant-garde composer, walking home from the branch meeting of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), feeling marginalised and helpless, but hoping against all hope that the actions of him and his comrades would lead to a new revolutionary dawn.

Because that, too, is what the old prophet promised:

“Those people who sat in darkness have seen a great light;

And those who lived under the shadow of death have seen the light of a new dawn.”

It's hard to imagine this, now that Christianity in so many of its manifestations is not new at all but a reactionary force that seeks to prevent change.

Idealism can go so terribly wrong…

Cardew’s RCPB (M-L) became a supporter of Enver Hoxha, the hideously repressive dictator of Albania; and nowadays it tries to promote solidarity with North Korea.

And so I'm not sure why, hopeless optimist that I am, I still believe in the words of old Isaiah.

As Queen Jesus puts it,

“When our mum made the great big light in the sky she took a tiny bit of that light and put it deep inside us.

And it is still there deep deep in the very heart of us,

No matter how much darkness there is in the world around us, no matter how much darkness there is in our lives,

The light is still there, and our job is to bring it out and let it shine”.