Isaiah 11

Malachi saw a hawk in our yard yesterday morning. I excitedly ran to get my camera while he watched it from our kitchen window. As I came back into the kitchen, he ran to me, tears in his eyes. "It's eating a baby bird!" he sobbed.  A quick glance out the window at the storm of feathers scattering on the snow told me he was right. One of the fat sparrows that enjoy our feeder and bring smiles to our faces with their antics had become the meal of a hungry raptor. The logical adult in me was ready to explain to him how this was the natural order of life and how that bird had to die so another could live and that's just how life works. But then I remembered. That's not how life is supposed to work. We weren't supposed to have to kill each other to survive. We were meant to live in symbiotic harmony, not in a linear food chain.

How is it we forget that? How have we become so hardened to this death- so used to life submitting to decay, beauty fading away, and temporary being the norm? Don't we say we have eternal life in us? How can we, who taste the perfection of eternity every time we sit in God's presence, see the vicious tearing of flesh as acceptable, as normal?

I understand that right now, this is how our world works. I understand that Yahweh was the first to slice flesh and watch the blood drain out. I understand that we cannot shy away from this wretched truth that slaps us every morning and chills our bones every night. But let's not embrace this condition as reality. Our reality is life- true life. No more killings. No more goodbyes. Just life. A permanent world- not this ephemeral vapor that I see out my window. Let's hold on the horror that death brings. But as we do, let's not let it paralyze us, rather let this grim world lift our gaze to the one who has conquered our bitter foe. Life is coming, I can see it rushing toward us, all the more bright in this thick darkness.

I held Malachi and I cried with him. Don't lose your hatred of death, little man. Hold on to the horror. Because true life is as beautiful as we imagine it might be. We are destined for a far better world than this one.