Tuesday, April 22, 2008

The lost art of faith and hope...

The lost art of faith and hope...
By: Ken La Rive

We let a lot in the uninspiring and gloomy particles of life slide past us. Some of these elements make us so uncomfortable that we have actually learned to ignore them, even to accept them as normal. It is a survival technique developed as far back as the metaphorical garden, before the creation of faith and hope.

Our ancestors lived in a world that was perceived to possess unlimited resources. They ran together with firebrands and chased whole buffalo herds over cliffs. Some thought nothing of cutting down the last tree in the little vale they chose to make home, just for another meager cooking fire. When they altered an environment by slash and burn, or depleted the animals in an area, they found a simple solution. All they had to do was move over to another ecosystem beyond the hill and start over. The hunter-gatherer-nomad was the norm then, and responsibility small.

Times have changed, and never before are we more accountable for what we do. We have found our borders to be finite, and that even small things make a difference.

Modern men perceive the world in desperation, trying to find sanity in an ambiguous and irrational world. We hold accountability a bit out of focus, with a bottle of Scotch, or a football game. Like sheep, most have little understanding or control of themselves, and lost, scratch blindly to the end of their days, without reason.

With little worth dying for, taking a stand, for love, honor, righteousness, or civil justice, is just too dangerous a proposition, the effort to consuming.

We forget that many men have died to incorporate moral value into our social consciousness? What civility we take for granted, the right from wrong we hold in our hearts, began with the faith and hope of a single man of principle.

We can’t go back to the irresponsible days of abundance, where a fresh start was a few miles away. This world is finite, and without sound moral principles that promote hope and faith, we will loose more than the bounty of our precious earth, but our very souls as well.

Fear grips the hearts of those who have lost the strength of faith, for without it there is little reason for being, and no hope for the future. If you can find nothing to die for, you have found very little to live for.

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