The War in the Worlds

One thing that Michael O'Brien is particularly good at: highlighting and capturing in his novels the dread reality of unseen war. We live in the midst of a battlefield, says one character--why on earth do we keep trying to build utopia while bombs fall all around and riflefire can be heard on distant streets?

Here we are, intersections of matter and spirit, body and soul, five fingered animals and five pointed stars within the circumference of the created realm, caught between devils and angels, God and our own fellow men, in a melee that will last till the end of time. What do we do about it? What do we do with it? How can you live your life as though each step is independent of the last, is unimportant, can be taken without thought, if you suddenly become aware of the enemies resting amidst the powers and principalities of this present darkness? Reverse the coin, as well--how can one live a sane, happy, healthy life while being aware of the awful warfare being waged around us, in our midst, above and below and on either side of us? Solzhenitsyn's quote comes in here, though:

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.

We wage war against the darkness in our own hearts, first and foremost. All other foes we consign to prayer, to works of mercy, and to love. By growing strong in sanctity, we defeat evil. By growing tall and great in the ways of the Lord, do we win.

I shall cite Harry Potter for spiritual advice here, as I will again and again--the way to defeat the most evil Dark Wizard ever to exist is to have a heart capable of great love and great courage, to have friends walking the way of learning and goodness with you, to build family and community with whoever is willing, whoever comes to hand. We shall overcome, not in some great triumph of the proletariat over the bourgeois, not through the oppressed putting paid to the oppressors, not through violence and deciding that if God will not act now to separate the sheep from the goats, then we will.

No! We win every time our hearts are moved by love, by compassion, by pity, by seeing the blind leading the blind in this present darkness and crying out "Stop! There's a cliff!" We win every time we come to the precipice of the same tired old sin, the same temptation that has snared us for years, and we find the strength somehow to delay the fall, to say "No" now, because now is all we've got.

We win when we love. We win when we tell the truth, when we create a spot of beauty, a moment of solace, a time for joy, for sheer being. We win when we are good and aid others to be good, because that's all we've got. That's all the burden given us, all the life demanded of us.

Each now, each moment, reach for that life, that fullness of life that comes with living the way we are supposed to have lived! Be free for one moment, one instant, one small breath--then another. Demand of yourself everything, and forgive everyone else everything, because our own heart and soul is the only place we can claim real dominion. Goodness is contagious. Truly right living spreads. Be as the saints have been! Be free!