A journal of commentary, narrative and poetry about navigating through life

the flame

The Sentinel

I am a sentient pine in an ancient forest. I have lived in this stand of trees over the course of 6,000years, resolutely adding rings, through wind and storm, sun, snow and rain. Here I have witnessed the unfolding story of human history, through its cycles of peace and war, abundance and famine, great joy and great sorrow. I have watched as nations and peoples have arisen and prospered, and declined and were conquered and absorbed by new and greater powers of nations and peoples. And, I have witnessed that some have fallen, not by force of greater powers, but merely under the weight of their own degeneration and weakness.

I have silently listened, down through the ages, to the roll call of civilizations and tribes and nations and empires, each in their time, Babylonia, Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Media, Greece, Rome, the Germanic hordes, the Goths and Visigoths, the fiefdoms of the dark and middle ages, the rise of the British empire as it came to rule the seas and gathered colonies and kingdoms under the shadow of the crown, the French ascendancy under the Napoleonic empire, the rise of the Western and Eastern nations of the recent centuries. I was there as each ascended to positions of power and influence in their time -- and I was there as each fell from power.

Silently I have watched great leaders arise, develop grand visions and goals and lead millions in their quest for greatness -- each in the manner of their own culture, purpose and time -- accumulating victories, gold, land and power. And then, I watched as their time ran its course: their greatness dimmed, their imperial foundations cracked and crumbled and their glory faded and was lost under the sands of time. Now, of most, a cracked column, an obscured writing, or a half buried foundation is all that remains.

I feel the pain and loss of those who lived and ruled in these fallen empires, the loss of their power, wealth and glory. Moreover, I feel the pain and loss of those on whose backs this glory was acquired and whose blood was spilled: the despair of the fathers and their sons who were conscripted into a war, not of their own making, and who died to fulfill the empire's goals, the grief of the mothers whose children the conquering sword cut asunder. I feel the anguish of those who continue, to this day, to live with the perpetual unrest and division and angst now burning among the peoples and nations, unrest set aflame by the strategies and conquests of the ancients, Nebuchadnezzar, Darius, Alexander the Great, the Roman Caesars and the king's and religious rulers throughout the millennia. The fires of hate, division and mistrust are passed, with each generation, from father to son and mother to daughter, from tribe to tribe and nation to nation, by word and by deed.

I stand and watch, over the course of six millennia, boughs spread open to the sun and wind and rain, knowing that throughout the ages there is one lasting and certain hope, one certainty amidst peace and war, abundance and want, joy and sorrow; it is that God is using the events throughout all history, to fulfill his plans. His purposes will come to pass as he has conceived and spoken them. And so it is faithfully written, “Let the name of God be blessed forever and ever, for wisdom and power belong to Him. It is He who changes the times and the epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings; He gives wisdom to wise men and knowledge to men of understanding. It is He who reveals the profound and hidden things; He knows what is in the darkness, And the light dwells with Him..." 

- Thomas Fideler