December 7th. The day that was slated to live in infamy.
And all of the sudden it makes it pretty obvious how the Israelites kept complaining in the desert, doesn't it? Typically I read that story and go, "Are you serious? How in the world are you saying this to the God who just delivered you from Pharaoh and all his Egyptian army, you dirty, no-good, misfit bunch of complaining, whining, ungrateful, forgetful babies."
But then December 7th comes and maybe---maybe---I remember.
But sometimes not.
Just like the Israelites. They didn't remember either. In spite of how God said to them over and over again, "Remember, remember, remember."
But humans tend to forget to remember.
Saturday, though, I remembered.
And Sunday I remembered.
And all day today? I remembered.
Couldn't stop remembering.
Those pictures kept flooding through my eyes, almost as if they were in motion like the way a memory would be in motion, but it wasn't a memory: I wasn't there. How did it feel like I had been there?
In spite of the fact that my parents weren't even born when that happened all those not-so-many-years-ago, let alone myself, all weekend it has haunted me.
And those hauntings made me think of war in general. That war in particular.
The one we joined after Pearl Harbor.
You know, the one my grandfather fought in.
The one he got all those Silver Stars and Purple Hearts for.
The one he blazed all over France and North Africa and Italy for.
The one he wished he didn't remember.
But what was it all for again?
Are we forgetful? Ungrateful? Do we remember?
Oh that's right.
Because men like this guy exist in the world:
Who do this to a lot of women:
I have had the privilege in my life to have met, not one, but two German women who had been Hitler Youths during WWII.
Their stories are...insane.
From things they were forced to do, to concentration camps they ended up escaping from, to city streets they ran through as bullets were being shot at them from planes above, to the angel that laid on top of them in a road so the bomb that exploded right by them wouldn't leave a scratch.
I'm not kidding.
And their crazier than fiction real life stories bring things like war and terrible dictators and people on power trips to a whole new level of real.
Do you ever wonder how those terrible people of the world--the Hitler's of the world--exist, or get to be the way they are?
It's easy for me to scoff at them the same way I do at the Wandering Israelites.
Really though, is there anything in my scoffing other than me claiming I could never be like them?
No. That's exactly what I am doing. I am turning my nose up and saying to them and all dictators: "You disgust me. I'm so glad I am not like you."
And sure, I am not a dictator.
But could I be?
I shudder.
I know it's true.
There is this musician I listen to named Dustin Kensrue, and he has a song called "It's Not Enough."
A haunting song. One completely infiltrated with word-pictures I don't want to see. Because it's like they are memories. Moving through my mind.
And some of them are in fact memories.
And some...some are current realities.
Realities that scare me.
Scare me because I don't want to recognize them. I don't want to acknowledge they still exist in me. I should be past all that, shouldn't I?
Here are the lyrics: And listen to it here.
"Though all the wealth of men was mine to squander
And towers of ivory rose beneath my feet
Were palaces of pleasure mine to wander
The sum of it would leave me incomplete
Though every soul would hold my name in honor
And truest love was always by my side
My praises sung by grateful sons and daughters
My soul would never still be satisfied
It's not enough, it's not enough
I could walk the world forever
Till my shoes were filled with blood
It's not enough, it's not enough
Though I could live for all to lift them higher
Or spend the centuries seeking light within
Though I indulged my every dark desire
Exhausting every avenue of sin
It's not enough, it's not enough
I could walk the world forever
Till my shoes were filled with blood
It's not enough, it's not enough
I could right all wrongs, or ravage
Everything beneath the sun
It's not enough, it's not enough
To make me whole
It's not enough, it never was
Awake my soul
It's not enough, it never was
It's not enough, it's not enough
I could walk the world forever
Till my shoes were filled with blood
It's not enough, it's not enough
I could right all wrongs, or ravage
Everything beneath the sun
It's not enough, it's not enough
Though all would bow to me
Till I could drink my fill of fear and love
It's not enough, it's not enough."
See, those pictures in my head, I see them clearly:
Squandering wealth. Towers of Ivory. Wandering in Palaces of Pleasure.
Walking the world forever. Seeking light within.
Indulging dark desires. Exhausting avenues of sin.
Righting wrongs.
About all of these lines I go, "Been there. Yes, I have done that. I even have the pictures to prove it."
But it's his last line. That's the one that scares me.
And not Scares Me like in the same way the memories do, not Scares Me because I don't want to remember how I was ever like that.
But scares me because I feel it still in me.
"Though all would bow to me till I could drink my fill of fear and love...."
I hear him say that, vocals strained, and it echoes to something in me that all my darkness knows.
That darkness everywhere knows.
For really, isn't that where the first darkness came from?
From this desire that all bow to you....?
Isn't that how we all went wrong in the first place and how we all still go wrong? Because we love the power trip, the ability to say "Go" and "Come" and people go and come. It's in our blood.
I don't want moving pictures in my head of Pearl Harbor because I know how things like that happen. It scares me because I understand the wildness it requires; I see images like this, I hear lines like that sung, and all my killer instinct rushes to the surface. That's what scares me. That's why I shudder at those images. Because I could be the dictator.
I feel it deep in me when I hear "though all would bow to me."
Because the potential to be the mind behind sneak attacks, and the tactician of marching armies, and one who revels in those who bow to me, lingers from the fall.
I don't like it. Wolfies, I don't like it one bit.
Which, I think that's why God wants us to remember.
Because it is something not to like.
Our nature, where we come from, where we were--where I was, where you were, all of us--when he found us, the memory is something that should drive us from the darkness. I shudder at the knowledge that dictators start the same way I did; which is why it's no leap for my mind to envision all bowing when I hear those haunting words. We are cut from the same cloth.
"Remember, remember, remember" he says. And he could add, "Because you are like them. Don't ever forget that."
I cannot scoff! I cannot turn my nose up!
I am made of the same stuff they are! I AM THE COMPLAINER IN THE DESERT! I AM THE DICTATOR! I AM THE ONE FORCING OTHERS TO BOW TO ME!
David got it right when he said, "Apart from you I have no good thing." (Psalm 16:2)
No good thing.
Nothing not worth scoffing at.
One of my former-Hitler Youth friends was asked one day, "What if the United States had not entered WWII?"
With a sobered look on her face she said, "Then the word to this day would be saying 'Heil Hitler.'"
Not much is different. Have you asked yourself where you would be if Jesus hadn't entered your life? If he hadn't pulled you out of that wildness? If he hadn't heard your, maybe silent and unknown, cry?
I fear I know where I would be. Still living out all those things that I now know are not enough, wishing I would be bowed to, complaining in deserts, dictating those I could force to listen.
Remember, Wolfies. If it wasn't for him, we would be them.
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