Moths around Light

Eternity must be a matter of perspective, eh? Last evening The Weather Channel was on quietly as we had a glass of shiraz, well I had wine, Linda had a bowl of cereal, a program about asteroids and meteorites. The usual visuals of a dinosaur vapidly watching the flash of its demise as one slammed into our planet millions of years ago, Παντοκράτωρ tiring of lizards and deciding to change the channel. What will He watch after Anthropon and the Flood? Glimpses into the stars and the dark beyond kept me sensible of insignificance. Eternity at the moment is the view from my hotel window: framed by a black sky, moths fluttering around a security lamp.

Were moths here with the dinosaurs? If moths have collective memory what will they tell whoever or whatever comes on next about us? 

Bernard of Cluny was wrong, but this poem from his profuseness failed to make the cut in the transition from our 1940 Hymnal to The Hymnal 1982. One (that’s me) thinks it wasn’t because we never sang it, though we didn’t. 

The world is very evil,

The times are waxing late;

Be sober and keep vigil,

The Judge is at the gate;

The Judge that comes in mercy,

The Judge that comes with might,

To terminate the evil,

To diadem the right.

It’s a dismal hymn even though we who are singing are smugly certain that we are among those about to be diademed. We all assume that; it’s the central blemish of certainty.

Eternity? It’s a wait and see proposition, isn’t it.

TW gratefully in +Time

RSF&PTL