A Tale of Two Countries

Many years ago a new nation was founded. By and large it was agreed that, whether God was distant from or involved in the world, certain standards of life and law were self-evident. The nation would function under neither the thumb of a single despot nor the sneer of select aristocracy, but by a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal (with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness), it united peoples of many nations and ethnicities.

Some years passed, and a new premise came to prominence: man comes not from man but from beast, made not by God but by chance. This idea was quickly welcomed in the name of knowledge and scientific advancement.

For many years, all of this country’s people coexisted side by side. Those who held to the God view of things were by and large willing to accept certain premises of the chance view, and those who held to the chance view were by and large willing to abide by certain aspects of the God view (since the moral standards of society were implicitly tied thereto). Of course, the natural strife of human nature presided in a general fashion, but the sustained relative peace and the promise of continued wealth precluded the need to openly discuss the growing religious and philosophical internal division. The cities grew taller; the nation’s world presence grew stronger; the people grew more wealthy and comfortable.

Following these years, however, there arose a generation that questioned things that had long gone unquestioned. The natural breach between the two views of life and law, so long covered over by the twin bridges Prosperity and Expediency, began to be exploited. The bridges' trusses soon buckled under the weight of the new-found scrutiny, and social turmoil increased. The opposing war cries of Standards and Progress were sounded – not on the battlefield of the earth, but of the mind and the public forum.

After some years, the appeal to Standards alone was seen to be leading a losing battle. The foundation of the Progress supporters must be attacked, but how? To question the vague intentions of Progress, to appeal to the intent of the nation's founders, to focus on the issue of mankind’s origin – all of these strategies were variously propounded, debated, and enacted.

The tides of battle in the public square ran first one direction, then the other. Soon, with each turn of the tide, the losing side pondered ending the unhappy union. Ultimately, both sides became convinced that they were losing, pronouncing apocalyptic consequences in the event of their final defeat.

One side feared the decay of morals and religious freedom. The other feared the denial of any freedom and the idea that truth could be true. At last a public consensus was reached. The breach was relabeled a chasm, and the twin bridges were demolished, ending the tumultuous union.

Rejoicing was immediate, but momentary. Each side had finally received what it thought it wanted; yet neither was satisfied. One side discovered that society could not function when every man did as he pleased. The other discovered that a functioning society pleased every man – and some realized that this was a lowly goal indeed. They saw that in separating from the country of those who disagreed, they had withdrawn from their Great Commission. Rather than seeking to make disciples of all nations, they had withdrawn to be disciples within their own nation.

The Turning Point

The man stood motionless in the dusk, staring forward, lost in thought. Tomorrow would be the anniversary of that terrible day, so many years ago. He hated to think about it; and yet, somehow, he had come again to revisit the place—and its memories.

He looked up at the tree. Its branches hovered solemnly overhead, just as they had twenty years before. The tree was older and now grander with the passage of years, but it was still bent—no, deformed. The gash seemed to be staring up at him with a hideous grin, as if to tell him, “It was your fault. It never would have happened if it weren’t for you.”

He hated the sight of that old tree, and usually did all that he could to avoid driving by it. Why it had survived he could not see, unless to torment his memory. But the tree wasn’t the only reminder. He looked down at the scars on his arms...

He had made many wrong choices in his youth. After falling in with the wrong crowd, he began a life of petty crime. Petty, that is, until he decided to rob the bank. He knew that it would devastate his parents when they found out. He knew that his brother and sister—hard-working and law-abiding—would feel betrayed. What he did not know was that his brother was on duty that night.

As he held up the bank, the emergency call went out. His brother answered. The flashing lights appeared in his rearview mirror as he pulled away in his car. A high speed chase followed, and continued until, about three miles outside of town, he missed the bend in the road. His car careened into the tree. The police car pulled up behind as his own car became engulfed in flames. Memories of what followed were scattered... his brother walking into the blaze to pull him out... throwing him down on the ground... smothering the scorching flames... shielding him from the explosion...

The man shivered. The night was cold; the darkness, colder. No longer at the side of the road, he stood in the cemetery, weeping. He felt a hand rest on his shoulder. “I thought I would find you here,” his wife said. “The children were worried.” The man lifted his gaze from the gravestone in front of him. “You know why he did it,” she whispered. “He was at peace with God; and he knew that you were not.”

What Does It Mean to Have Lost a Generation?

I stretched out my arms and leaned back against the bench. The sun shone down on the park behind me, while a gentle wind rustled the leaves of nearby trees–a perfect mixture of warm sunshine and crisp autumn air.

It was a peculiar location for a park bench. The park was large, but this particular bench was placed in the far corner, under a lone tree, facing not the park, but the intersection beyond. Along the street to my right sat a row of sturdy little houses. They all had the look of having been built within a few years of each other, some number of decades ago. Perpendicular to this, a few small shops marked the path downtown. All of this, however, made the bench a favorite place of mine to sit and think.

The sound of laughter caught my attention, and I turned my head. Three young boys, no more than four years old, wrestled over a ball in the grass. Their mother and sister sat on a blanket nearby, enjoying tea together, seemingly oblivious to the raucous mood surrounding them. (The mother, however, was certain to glance in the boys’ direction every minute or two.)

I thought I recognized the woman. She seemed to frequent the park with her children, although I did not remember her having four. A passing thought suggested that perhaps two of the boys were friends.

Not far away from this family, a boy stood holding a string. His younger sister ran about in the distance, chasing the tail of the kite attached to its end.

A car door opened in the adjacent parking, and I noticed the newspaper stand. A team of doctors had discovered... I could not decipher the rest of the headline.

Directly across the street, a car pulled into the driveway. Within seconds, a young girl was dashing across the lawn towards the woman who stood in the doorway. With a cry of “Grandma!”she was in the woman’s arms. A moment later, the grandfather appeared in the doorway. Pausing only to rustle the girl’s curly hair and whisper a word into her ear, he proceeded toward the driveway to help his daughter carry the luggage indoors. He glanced across the street, and caught my stare. I had not realized that the woman who lived in that house had a husband, or any family at all.

The wind blew stronger now. I heard a cry behind me. The string in the boy’s hand had snapped; his wayward kite spiraled into the distance. As the gust gained strength, I clutched the bench, then laughed at myself. Winds grab kites, not people. Shivering, I made up my mind to return home...

The chilling gust of wind jerked me awake. I sat up, startled—I had not intended to fall asleep. But as suddenly as the wind had risen, it was gone. The sun had disappeared, and with it the car, the woman, and her daughter and parents. The house reverted to the austere facade that I had previously remembered. The front door opened, and the woman came out, hurriedly shuffling over to find something of value from her car in the driveway.

I turned my head to see if the picnickers remained. A mother—the mother—looked on as her four-year-old son and daughter played in the grass. Her faint smile faded as she watched her son attempting to convince his sister to play ball.

I glanced in the direction of the boy who had flown the kite, but saw no kite, and no girl. Not far from where the boy had held the kite string was a young athlete, trudging across the park in his football pads, helmet in hand. Whether it was the same boy I could not tell.

My eyes darted now toward the newspaper stand to check the headline: jobs would not be leaving the area, though many people had feared otherwise.

The woman across the street closed her car door as a familiar (or so I thought) older man jogged down the street. She appeared startled for but a moment, then quickly recovered. He passed by, careful to act the part of a stranger. The woman returned to the house, and closed the door behind her.