21 December 20XX+1
My Dear Lucilius:
Although it seems all too quick to me, we have reached the fourth Sunday of Advent.
Our advent wreath sat in the morning light, its two purple candles and pink candle partial burned with one remaining full purple candle present.
“The Angel candle” said Pompeia Paulina as she lit each one, starting with the earliest candle we had used and working her way around the wreath. It symbolizes love”.
Love, Lucilius.
I have to be honest with you that love, especially under the current circumstances, seems like a very strange word. Yes, of course in one way it matters more – one holds the ones that one loves closer in such circumstances (or in my own, finds them in the midst of such circumstances in order to hold them) – but it seems out of place.
If I think back to when post-apocalyptic was a fiction construct circa the 1950’s to 20XX (when it suddenly was no longer fiction), it was something that almost never appeared. Sure, inevitably (it being fiction and all) there was undoubtedly some sort of underlying love story or unrequited love interest (the hero dying just as they reached The Promised Land), but more often than not there was a great deal of fighting and surviving and traveling across ruined country.
Love – especially love for something or someone that was not specifically within your reach – was a pretty foreign fictional concept.
And yet, I look at a candle reminding me of Love, of a message of love brought by an angel, first to Mary, and then to shepherds in a field (joined by thousands of other angels). And am reminded that such an unconditional love does not change, no matter what our outwards circumstances.
God so loved the world, says the Apostle John, that He sent His only Son, that whoever shall believe in Him should not perish but have eternal life. He loved the world through the Western Collapse of Empire, He love the world through the Religious Wars, He loved the world through calamitous 20th Century that led us to here.
We all remain sinners in need of a Saviour, Lucilius, not matter what our outward circumstances.
Your Obedient Servant, Seneca
That four letter word forms the bedrock of Christianity TB, a promise.....one that seems distant during strife and collapse. All the more important to keep that candle lit.
ReplyDeleteNylon12, if I were a smarter man and had more time and interest, I think a survey of "post-apocalyptic fiction" would be an interesting undertaking. I am sure over the years that it has changed from things like nuclear war and random space incidents like meteor strikes to rogue microbes and economic collapses, but in general the human side may be lost.
DeleteWe need that four letter word at all times, especially in times of great strife. We forget that often, I think.
I would be very interested in such a survey TB. I bought my first books in 1965, a couple of Andre Norton's: The Last Planet, and Daybreak 2250AD, both prominently "pockyclips" fiction (and that snarky misspelling is a Mad Max reference). I could probably pull a hundred examples of such books from my shelves even now.
DeleteGreg - I have these books too! Some of my favourites of hers, as well as No Night Without Stars and The Dark Piper (which may be my favourite of all Andre Norton works).
DeleteI have a fair amount, but not nearly that many (although it holds more than most, likely). Even Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote a couple, which clearly predates the 1950's.
That might make for an interesting project indeed.
Love is the very essence of God, our Lord, Creation. We are fortunate to perceive it as much as we do. Just my opinion and I know only a little more than nothing, on a good day.
ReplyDeleteT_M - We are indeed fortunate to perceive whatever we do of it - I, like you, struggle more often than not to see it.
DeleteI think English does disservice to the word "love" in that it is used in so many ways. I love brownies. I love baseball. I love my Mom. I love God. Then I've seen recently the idea that love means letting a person do whatever they want, because loving someone means making them happy.
ReplyDeleteIn Greek there are different words for love, for example phileo or brotherly love or affection, and agape or the sacrificial love of putting another person first, of putting God first. I find it incredibly helpful to know which Greek word is being used and sometimes think about how to apply them in my own life. In difficult circumstances, I have to remember that agape has nothing to do with feelings and everything to do with actions. It takes a lot of pressure off to know that my feelings don't have to control my actions, I can control my actions in spite of my feelings.
Leigh, if you have never read C.S. Lewis' book The Four Loves, it deals precisely with this subject (the weakness of the word "love" in English versus the very specific words used in the Greek).
DeleteHonestly in modern society, I think we often struggle with the "friendship" love most of all - partially because we have devalued the word "friend" to mean a social media "like" and partially because we no longer seem to treat friendship as we used to.
Overcome my feelings with actions is a struggle sometimes. There can be a lot of self talk about how the fact I feel something should not influence my actions in this case.