Put your head down, the happy new year of 2021 comes crashing in upon us. Two things: first, if anyone is surprised by the chaotic events of the last couple of days, it would be naive to assume that things are worse now than ever before; we are simply more regularly (incessantly) exposed to the human darkness that rears its ugly head. C.S. Lewis says essentially the same thing here: “The war creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would have never begun. We are mistaken when we compare war with ’normal life’. Life has never been normal. Even those periods which we think most tranquil, like the nineteenth century, turn out, on closer inspection, to be full of cries, alarms, difficulties, emergencies”. CS Lewis - Learning in War-Time.
Which leads to the second thing: while the world raged around us, Two Rivers folk told stories at Living Room in December about how their families celebrated the birth of our Lord, symbolized by Christmas artifacts that were used, and continue to be used, in their homes. These photos posted here represent some of the artifacts shared at Living Rooms. We engage the war in different ways: sometimes in protest and prophetic naming, and sometimes in quiet sharing of, and listening to, stories of goodness and grace. GS
