Thursday of the Third Week of Lent
By SOPHIE DRUFFNER
But they obeyed not, nor did they pay heed.
They walked in the hardness of their evil hearts
and turned their backs, not their faces, to me.
From the day that your fathers left the land of Egypt even to this day, I have sent you untiringly all my servants the prophets.
Yet they have not obeyed me nor paid heed;
they have stiffened their necks and done worse than their fathers.
When you speak all these words to them,
they will not listen to you either;
when you call to them, they will not answer you.
In the story A Wrinkle in Time, Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which, and Mrs. Whatsit tell Meg, Calvin, and Charles Wallace that the huge darkness descending on the world, continually punctured and held back by a force of light, is The Black Thing. But, they tell the children, great artists, presidents, and people such as Ghandi and Jesus drove back the darkness; hence, the puncturing light. The darkness is the evil in the world; the light is the good.
It seems that many times a year someone tells me that the world is getting worse. The carbon emissions are increasing, more people are dying, nuclear weapons are growing ever more, and on and on.
It seems that the older people get the more they are weighed down by the world. It gets easier to worry about money, taxes, wars, holocausts, etc., and it seems that it gets harder to smile.
We are here to make a difference; we are here to make a change in the world for better. We are supposed to make the world a better place and so many of us do, through our work, through our conversations, through our prayers, through even the kids that bring so much happiness into the world.
It’s amazing how much a baby can make others happy through his or her smile. There’s something about that big toothless grin that makes strangers make funny faces at the baby, strangers who might look at you funny if you smiled at them.
Whenever you’re “weighed down by the world,” think about the smile of a baby. Think about how when you were a teen you drove with the windows down and the music blasting, the wind going through the windows and everything absolutely perfect. Think about the feeling you had when you got into your dream college, when you danced around the room, the world an amazing place. Think about your first date, or the day you got engaged, or any moment of pure happiness. Think about how much better you can make the world through smiling at one extra person. Think about your happiness--it’s much harder to do something wrong when you’re ecstatic; it’s much easier to do good when you’re so happy. Through your smile, you create light, you drive out the Black Thing, you imitate Christ.
Yes, the world might seem to be getting worse every single day, but the wars, holocausts, and things have been happening since the beginning of time. Do what you can to make the world a better place, and influence people to do good, and remember to be happy, for happiness creates the most good in the world. Drive back the darkness, and do not be afraid.
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