Last Friday of vacation...

So it's Friday, which means we're coming home tonight. I remember when I used to really look forward to leaving vacation to get home. Not so much anymore. I have really come to enjoy spending time with my family and with Jeni's family. I still enjoy Toledo. But it's hard not having any family around you. I know that many of the people around there have become like family to us. And that is nice. However, it is different than the family you grow up with. Almost all of both of our families live within a fifteen mile radius of each other. There's a stability that exists in that situation that doesn't when you're 200 miles away. Oh well, onward and northward!
So it's 5 am and my body told me it's done sleeping. So I'm waiting for mommy to come out. I left my bible and journal out on their porch. I can't go get it because they have an alarm set on any of the doors leading outside. I set it off once because I thought I knew the password. The sound of that alarm going off is like standing 3 feet from an ambulance siren. I'll wait for mumsie.
So it's been a very nice vacation. Often my method of vacationing in Wooster is to basically go into hiding. I don't want to see anyone or hear from anyone. This has always been a problem for me. When I get tired, I isolate. BAD CHOICE! Being by myself in the morning for my quiet time is one thing. Remaining by myself all day is quite the other. There is a refreshing that comes to my soul when I'm with people but have no responsibility for. This week, I went to the Cleveland zoo with my brother's family, took my family to watch Star Wars The Clone Wars (which I'll come back to in a minute), took Jeni's grandmother out for lunch, out to dinner with Jeni's mom, 2 sisters and our three nephews, hopefully we'll see her aunt today and my aunt and uncle tonight before we leave. Never done this before. Always too busy "resting" before to go see people. I feel far more rested and refreshed than I normally do after a week away. Almost sad to leave this time. But we'll be back one more time before winter to pick up more firewood from my folks house.
So last month I gloated a lot about seeing The Dark Knight on opening night. Again, such a powerful movie. In fact, I've put a couple joker cards in my bible to remind me who my enemy is. The personification of the devil in the movie Passion of the Christ wasn't as evil as the Joker was in this movie. So on the way back from the zoo, my brother and I were talking about the Batman movie and just how evil was so powerfully revealed in it. Outside of Hannibal Lecter in the Silence of the Lambs movies, I don't know of another movie that was so accurate in its depiction of the nature of evil. How the Joker continually turned people against each other was so powerful. This is exactly how evil functions. There's the scene where the Joker breaks the pool cue in half and drops it between the two guys and basically says whoever is still alive gets to be part of the team. Where all the bad guys kill each other at the beginning of the movie. How at the end when the people are forced to decide whether their ship is going to stay in one piece and they blow up the other boat. There's no other way to accurately describe evil besides creating a name only for it. That word is "evil". So I'm watching Star Wars and reminded of Episodes 1-3 and how Yoda over and over talks about how the dark side of the force clouds the good side's understanding. Evil is always one or two steps ahead of good. Evil is revealed for how bad it is in Star Wars Episode 3 when Anikan goes to the Jedi Temple and slaughters all of the younglings. Evil is very patient. It's in no hurry because a good plot takes awhile to develop. Evil also has no compassion for the weak, nor does it regard or respect the strong. Evil seeks to kill, steal and destroy. For no other reason than to spread death and destruction. I don't know if the enemy of our soul is showing his hand out of pride or a desire to bring others into his camp. But I think these couple movies are really revealing of the nature of evil.
The nature of good, however, is pictured as more powerful. Why? Because it is! Good thoroughly overcomes evil if good is true to itself. There are other movies where good really isn't good. Constantine is a God-Satan movie that couldn't be more ridiculous. John Constantine is "good", but his actions don't point to good. Good wins because the nature of good thwarts the purposes and plans of evil. If Luke Skywalker murders a defenseless Darth Vader, he becomes the Emperor's apprentice. If Batman kills the Joker, he takes his place as evil personified. But Luke puts down his lightsaber and resists the dark side. Batman lets the Joker live.
Well, mommy's up and the alarm wasn't set. If I would ask, I would know these things. So now, Bible in hand, I'm reading in 1 John 4, "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love...God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him...Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love on another...There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, 'I love God,' but hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen..."
The common thread to overcoming evil is through love. Love and compassion. Love for people unlike us. Love for our enemies. If God is truly expanding inside of us, our love capacity will be growing. We will be able to love people that we never could before. We will be taking risks that we never could before. We'll be reaching out to people in compassion that we never did before. This is how evil is overcome. It's never overcome with vengeance. If anger and hostility is met with more anger and hostility, the world burns. And evil has won. Because that was evil's goal. Are you living in love? If not, let God do a work in you. Open up and let Him in. Find someone to talk to that can lead you to Him. Later, gators!