The waters of the Gulf around Destin are normally a pristine white. A quick rinse from a water hose tosses all the loose sand back to the ground from which in came. This morning however, the sand didn't come off. I took a 20 minute walk down the beach and did my very best to avoid the balls and sticky tar that had washed up overnight. Obviously, I wasn't successful.Marianne Williamson wrote, "Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us."
Sometimes I believe this is true. But on mornings like this, I wonder. In Genesis, God told the Serpent that a descendant of humanity would "crush your head, and you will bite his heal." This has been interpreted in many different ways, but as I glanced down at the heels of my shoe, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had bitten by a terrible evil. The head of the serpent might have been dealt a punishing blow from the cross of Christ, but it is still wriggling and squirming in the spasm of death. That spasm is no where more evident than in human persons. Call it sin, greed, a selfish gene... whatever. It's alive in us and we need saving from ourselves.
We truly are "powerful beyond measure" and power is a knife that cuts both ways. Williamson continues by saying that our "playing small does nothing to serve the world." Perhaps this statement is nowhere more evident than in our ecological power.
Man may be a great serpent who unleashed a viper's nest of oil on life in the Gulf of Mexico. We've been bitten on the heel, no doubt. The question that remains is:
"Will we find the Light and crush the head of our own greed? And when we finally do, will it be too late?"
More later.
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