pinnacle

Soaking up the calmness kissed by a gentle southwesterly, enveloped in the perfect temperature, I watch the storm clouds moving in from the west like infantry lining up for battle.  Behind them the immense dark forboding is momentarily lit up by lightening, subdued rumbles rolling several seconds behind.  A strange orange hue rolls across the sky like fog, whipping the stillness thick as pudding.  The sprinkles of rain will soon be replaced by an onslaught still brewing in the smoky clouds spreading over all the inner workings and hiding the coming storm.

How cruel is the peace and congenial atmosphere before the meteorological rage, much like the time in which we live.  Never has there been a time like this, when the ease and comfort of living has been so full and stretched so far.  The neo-modern Babylon being built by technology began with a broad base of five hundred years of amazing science, and in the last thirty years has swung sharply vertical, narrowing as it rises.  Ever higher it spires, stirring world-wide vision of a grand utopia, in which every human physical need is met effortlessly, all medical barriers are removed, ethnic harmony is achieved, and everyone, even the basest among us, can do as they please with no human condemnation.  Basically, it is a humanistic heaven without God or eternal life, although we are giving the eternal life thing a shot, too.

Even if God were to allow mankind to reach the lofty pinnacle, without a loving Creator to give purpose to it all, where would we go from there?  History is merely a cycle of advancing technology under open-minded, moral leadership only to fall into periods of disillusionment and ignorance under close-minded, tyrranical leadership.  Once the pinnacle is reached, there is only one way to go.  People become so comfortable that crime and poverty are literally redefined.  Our push-button easy living paints a deceptive altered reality, and people become easy prey for leaders offering hope and change.  What alien reasoning is this that has never had it so good in every area of life, and is so dissatisfied it gives away basic rights and freedoms?

The din of war is still present, but muffled for now.  Houses are bigger, knowledge is jetisoned by warehouse loads on lightning all over this ever shrinking world.  In America, a person is still free; you can have whatever you are willing to work for.  People are getting married, having children, building, vacationing, moving.  Life is good.  We have reached a pinnacle of peace and safety in our country never before enjoyed.  But it feels so very strange, like the calm before a storm.