Innocence

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so, they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Genesis 3:7

Thoughts and inspirations come from many different places.  I was listening to some music and I song came on that stirred up emotions for me. Don Henley’s The End of the Innocence. I won’t even pretend to understand what the song meant to him as he wrote and performed it.  What I remember of that time in my life was fear. Mainly fear of nuclear war.  Even as Communist regimes crumbled, many worried about the power vacuum that could occur.  It was a time in history where our innocence was gone, our absolute belief that the U.S. was the shining light of the world was questioned.

I remember living through that time in fear.  It didn’t help that I had no one to go to with these fears.  I thought that I would be living a normal day and that it all would end in a flash.  Not for everyone, though.  I saw myself as a survivor living in a horrifying post-apocalyptic world.  Henley’s song reminds me of that time.  It is ironic that the same year the song was published, the Berlin War fell.  Communism fell.  Our fears were lifted for a time.

We’ve been through so much as a world in the time since then.  New regimes have replaced the old.  Nuclear weapons still exist and are more dangerous than ever.  Some of our enemies are the same, some are new.  It puzzles me that as horrific as the early 2000’s were, they didn’t affect me like these past few years have.  There is too much information presented by people with such differing points of view.  I am afraid and it is worse now because we don’t know who to trust.  Our values change in the wind, depending on which leader we are talking about.  Brother and sister are aligned against each other over politics.  Maybe it has been this bad in the past, but I can’t remember it.

They’re beating plowshares into swords, for this tired old man that we elected king… (Don Henley)

Thank God there is only one king.  I still fear what will happen in this world.  I spend days in agonizing anxiety over it, my mind creating scenarios each more gruesome than the last.  I reach my arms up to the true King, my God.  I don’t understand why humans are as they are, but I know that God loves every last one of us.  I know that there are people like me, fearful yet hopeful and he loves us all.  So I turn to him.  I bring my fear and he tries to assuage it.  I can’t quite give it up, my eyes see too much, my ears hear too much.  I remember though that just as God created perfection for Adam and Eve, it will exist again, and I try to love those around me as we all huddle in the same fear.