Rush Toward Darkness

Last night at midnight T had had enough. He called from the phone inside Wal-Mart. Call the police, I said, They will help you. Then the police called. Too much trouble for them to do an intervention, could I take him to the ward?

I was furious at the drug that had taken this man since Thursday night. Furious at the dealer who was hospitable to the friendly and well paid young plumber until his check was spent. Furious at the addiction that throws a man out on the street, so terrified he could not bear to stand up, but huddled next to the police car. Furious at the stimulant that when leaving his body left him so cold that the warmth from the police car motor was a comfort.

"You should call people who love you when things like this come up. I would have picked you up and we'd have gone to a movie, ate chocolate, (eases cocaine cravings) and talked about women and dogs and cars for hours."

He started to cry.

"Instead I am driving you to a hospital in the middle of the night. You haven't eaten, you need a cigarette, you stink, and all I have to offer is advice on how to convince them to treat you."

I know why I get angry at this stuff. I'm powerless to do anything about it. I just do not have the love or the authority of a god, let alone a True God. My furious wish to mow down a dope dealer, to wreck the convenience stores that sell glass stem pipes and the single cleaning supply "chore-boy" is the wish of a little boy who thinks he can slay monsters by day and cower by night.

Here's what Jude said.

But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!"

But these men revile the things which they do not understand; and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed.

Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah.

These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever.

It was also about these men that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, "Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him."

These are grumblers, finding fault, following after their own lusts; they speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage.