Hermitage Notes - Signs Of Human Desperation

Sadness, fear, anger, bitterness, emptiness, and futility.

These are the expressions that I read on the faces and, even deeper, in the eyes of people that I encounter virtually everywhere I go [in the world] these days. It is not just expressions on faces and in eyes. These expressions are too often vented through outward displays of rudeness, frustrations, and aggression.

It is not something that I am just now observing. 

I have been watching it for years. Every trip to town to tend to the normal matters of life grows increasingly more difficult and the value of our little hermitage-like cabin in the woods increases with every trip into what we refer to as the settlements.

These characteristic marks and signs of human desperation [evidence of an absence of the peace of God] are growing increasingly more prevalent. It seems, too, that the depths of these … sadness, fear, anger, bitterness, emptiness, and futility … grows continually deeper transcending the hierarchy of social statuses. 

Even physical prosperity cannot hold them at bay. 

How can they not prevail when the one who is the Author of Salvation and the Generator of faith, hope, and charity is neither perceived or received as the one who gives peace? 

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give as the world gives. [John 14:27] 

The world offers only counterfeits that fail us in the here and now and lead us to eternal anguish in the hereafter. It is Christ who is able to provide us with real and lasting peace in our souls; peace that overcomes sadness, fear, anger, bitterness, emptiness, and futility in the here and now while leading us to eventual everlasting peace in the presence of God. 

Here, in these physical bodies, we are incapable of fully experiencing the peace of God. 

The soul-refreshing tastes of peace that we experience here in our physical bodies are only a preface, only a sample, only a foretaste, of the peace that is inherent in the beatific vision of God. 

Aging, and the realities associated with aging, are part of life. Of late, I have had to admit that I have no immunity to the aging process. I had a good visit with my primary physician this morning and have confidence that she will do a splendid job overseeing the medical aspects of this adventure.

The peace of Christ be with you.