What is "right"?

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What is "right"?

I was thinking about the song by the group Linkin Park called, "Castle of Glass" this morning. It was just running through my mind when a phrase got stuck in my head.

"Take me down to the river bend, Take me down to the fighting end, Wash the poison from off my skin, Show me how to be whole again".

I had heard someone asking why we had so many soldiers come back from the war in Iraq and Afghanistan struggling with mental health and suicide? Why were so many coming back with PTSD, and not so much in WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam?

My first thought was this most recent generation is living in an era where EVERYTHING is in the movies, on TV, or certainly on the Internet. Maybe previous generations were not televising all the dark secrets. Maybe families found ways to hide the relative who had, "shell shock" (as it was often called back then).

My second thought was that prior to 1970's, America had a stronger Christian/Religious community. Were soldiers going off to war with stronger Faith convictions and coming home to a stronger Faith support system? We are being told that in the last 20-30 years, children becoming adults leave their faith behind as they leave their homes behind.

Going back to Linkin Park, the question is asked, "show me how to be whole again". To my knowledge, the band makes no profession of faith. Watching the official music video, the seeming central figure goes from being the child that loses his father to war, himself becomes another cog in the, "Castle of Glass". It would appear that despite best of intensions, we are all just pawns in the hands of higher powers.

I felt there was also such a hopeless situation in the movie, "The Kingdom". Here the story line revolves around American Agents trying to get "legal" revenge for some of their own getting killed in Saudi Arabia. Rumor leads to testimony of a bomb builder with three missing fingers that was central to the Americans getting killed. After a lot of gun-fire, car chases, explosions and legal wrangling, the bomber is found and killed. The story closes with a flash back to the beginning where it is revealed what one agent tells another after the first news of the Agents getting killed. The group leader whispers to an underling, something like we will kill them, we will kill them all. The movie then has the grandson of the Saudi bomb maker getting told, we will kill them, we will kill them all.

We live in a world where every man, woman, and child holds a sense of right and wrong, good and bad, even if it is built on false perception. Some say there is not honest truth but all is mere perception. From person to person, neighborhood to neighborhood, all the way up to nation against nation, all is just perception. There is nothing to, (again Linkin Park) "Wash the poison from off my skin, Show me how to be whole again".

Is the whole world just a replay of "The Hatfields and The McCoys"? Each individual convinced that there is a grievance that needs to be avenged. Some people I know believe that all the corporate heads of industry are collectively evil, robbing the working class of our country. Could it not also be possible that these executives themselves believe that some incident their life or ancestral past was justification for getting all the wealth (revenge) they can lay hands on, legal or otherwise.

I believe the Bible tells us otherwise. In it God creates man, Man rejects God's rule, Man makes his own rules. We read that, "They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one." (Psalm 14:3), "They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one" (Romans 3:12). If people are involved (even "good religious folk") they will still have evil clouding their actions.

The hope we have is that God loves us and wants to redeem us. "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8). "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins," (1 John 4:10).

The problem is twofold. 1) Not every person takes hold of this gift. It is singularly through Jesus, the only name among men, the Bible tells us. 2) Even those who have called upon the name of Jesus, still have to battle with their natural tendency of rejecting the rules of God, and still treat their fellow man in evil ways. It would be nice if Faith changed all our behaviors to kindness and honesty. I can only hold to the Hope that is within the Gospel that in the life after this, all will be washed away and all will be made new, for those who die in Jesus.

For those who are hurting, confused, questioning life, the suggestion that there is hope only in the next life may seem empty. I get that, as I live with Mitochondrial disease, living in constant pain, fatigue and a brain that is foggy. I likely won't be cured in my lifetime. I can only have faith for what will be. It is faith, I can't put it in a test tube, or lay it against a ruler. It is what I hold as the truth.