Among The Bad, We Must See The Good

From August 25, 2000

At this time of year, the air is crisp and clear, and the scent of approaching autumn hangs from every tree. For us, however, the air has not been seasonably clear. This summer has been very hot and dry in this area. The skies have been thick with smoke and at times visibility has been so low we can only see as far as the neighbors.

When the sun rises, it casts a red light through the windows, changing everything in the house to a blushing pink. During the day, the scent of smoke hangs heavy in a yellow sky as we go about our daily business as if nothing is wrong. By the time the sun sets, it is a huge red globe that slowly sinks into the horizon where the mountains used to be. Within a couple hours, the dark is upon us-- a dense blackness void of any light other than the contrast of a vivid and eerily red moon.

On two separate occasions, I rose from my bed in the middle of the night, thinking that something was burning. I checked nearly every room in the house before I realized it was coming from the cool air outside. Another time, while we were in the process of moving and loading things into the house from outside, a curious cloud sailed not far overhead, and flakes of ash began to float around us, soft as snow. It wasn’t long before everything was covered with a thin film of ash.

It was the next morning that we learned of the 20,000-acre fire in a small community at the end of our very street. Within a day, the fire had spread to 35,000 acres and within two days to over 100,000 acres. It had sent up a plume of smoke 30,000 feet into the air and in it’s wild ferocity, created it’s own weather, much of it which we were experiencing.

As we have thought of those families forced to leave their homes, their ranches and their livelihoods, we have been grateful that our only inconvenience has been the smoke. Every day we have watched as Army trucks go back and forth full of equipment and personnel, school buses full of volunteer firefighters, an occasional firetruck, and most recently school buses with “El Rito No. 11” written on a white band across their sides-- volunteers from New Mexico! Our hearts have been grateful for those who put their lives on the line so that the rest of us can continue to live with some normalcy.

The heart of the human soul is genuinely good. So many times during this year I have wondered where the good in humanity has gone. I have seen people do things to intentionally hurt others and it has shaken my faith in humanity considerably. But once again, I am learning a new lesson in life... that the heart of the human soul is genuinely good. Having been created in the image of God, one who has infinite love for every human being, how could it possibly be any other way?

Among the bad, we must see the good, or we will lose our perspective and go down with the defeated. It is integral to the human nature to want to do good and to see the good in others. After spending two years hidden in a “Secret Annex” for fear of being discovered by the Nazis, Anne Frank wrote in her journal:

“It’s twice as hard for us young ones to hold our ground, and maintain our opinions, in a time when all ideals are being shattered and destroyed, when people are showing their worst side, and do not know whether to believe in truth and right and in God... That’s the difficulty in these times, ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to meet the horrible truth and be shattered.
"It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.” (July 15, 1944 Van der Rol, Ruud, and Rian Vehoeven. Anne Frank: Beyond the Diary. Amsterdam: Scholastic, 1995.)


Let us be thankful for our blessings. Appreciate the bright spots... a patch of blue sky, a home unscathed by smoke or flame, firefighters whose faces are weary with fatigue and streaked with soot, a family who loves us for who we are and not what we do. These are bright spots, and for these I am truly grateful, my faith in mankind once again restored.