Oh Glorious Day

"As Augustine said, evil is negation; love and beauty are the realities."

This sentence from this article has rung through my head all night. I think about the onslaught of efforts to be "real"; the "gritty realism" and "authenticity" movements that seem at times to glorify sin and elevate evil to a place of dubious honor. In this sentence, I feel my brain was set aright once again. I remember that Paul wrote "Now we see through a glass darkly". Among the many things that means, I now understand that one aspect of the darkened glass is that we think the dark things of this world are the normal ones. They are not. They are the aberration.

Back to Genesis: "And God saw that it was good." Everything was created good. Humanity, in God's image, was created "very good".

After the fall: Death. Destruction. Pain. Toil. All aberrations. All negation.

"And they all lived happily ever after." There is a reason our souls long for stories that end this way. Because deep down, we know that's the way it's supposed to be.

Looking through the glass darkly, we catch glimpses of the way things were meant to be all along, and will one day again be in the new heavens and new earth. I don't want to fall prey to the lies that glorify the negation. May my heart be drawn, as Paul also wrote, to dwell on "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think on these things" (Philippians 4:8).

Darkness is not dark to Him, because He is light. Darkness does not overcome the light. Light. Always. Wins.

Oh Glorious Day.