Like No Other Courage

(Continued from Something Amiss)

I looked out across the span of the world for some time feeling both remorse and pain over the chaotic display of humanity. Was I some part of this mess that man had gotten himself into? How could I help? What could I do? These were the questions that moved through my brain. Then suddenly I felt a heavy weight come down on the blade of my sword, so that it was almost thrust from my hand.

I turned to see what it was and behind me stood a terrifying being with cold eyes, spit oozing from its mouth. I shrieked and let go of the sword. I stumbled back, lost my footing and fell over the edge of the outcrop. I rolled a short distance then plummeted heavily to a shelf some several feet below. Still frightened by what I had seen, I looked up but it had not followed. I felt almost ill, nauseated by the memory of it. It was Pestilence I had seen and Pestilence that stepped on my joy.

I sat up and put my back against the rock wall rubbing my bruised leg. I looked again out over the valley of a world caught in turmoil. I saw a great darkness rising over the valley, coming from the direction I knew was west. The darkness was overwhelming, filling the sky and moving like a gigantic cloud toward me and over me. It was not rapid, but gradual and constant.

I stood on the shelf and turned into the wall, grappling for a way up. I was desperate to find my sword, desperate to get back to the rim. But the rock was crumbling at my grip and I could not climb it. Suddenly a quake shook the whole earth. I was thrown to my breast and struggled just to hold onto the shelf. Fortunate I was not to fall. I looked out across the world to see the effects of the quake and saw that a yellow-amber glow emanated from a crack through the earth below. The glow of molten lava lit the underside of the darkness like the roof of a cavern by torch.

I cried out to God. I wanted my joy back. I repented. I was sorry. Please, I begged. “Let me return!” I struggled to my feet, grappling for hand-holds. My right hand fell upon a sinuous cord that, when I pulled it toward me, glowed in soft white light. It felt warm to my touch, like the sword. I pulled it down and saw that it was a belt, for it had a buckle of jewels similar to that of my weapon now lost. I wrapped this belt around my waist to gird up the cloth of my robe so that I could climb more easily and immediately upon cinching it—I grew calm.

I knew my place. I knew I was a child of the living God. I knew I had nothing to fear. Though all the world around me had fallen in chaos and storm, I had nothing to fear for about my waist was the belt of truth: God had won this war since before time began. I knew it was so, and I knew that by Christ I had an eternal inheritance, that I was one of God’s children and no longer man’s.

I found a solid hold on the rock above me. I grasped with both hands and pulled my feet up to a secure place. I crawled in this manner up the wall without falling and pulled myself onto the upper bench. The beast Pestilence was still there. I rolled to my feet and stood before him, secure in my belt of Truth. “I command you, in the Name of Jesus, be gone. You have no hold on me. And it left at once, as a rat scurries away from the broom. I picked up the sword which still lay in the dust. In my hand, the jewels took light and the sword glowed again as before. I swung it in the air and ran away from the fallen rim of that outcropping toward the cliffs of the abyss.

But they were not there.

The sky had grown black above all the way to the horizons north and south. Perhaps I was lost. Perhaps I had gotten turned around. But the abyss and the sweet light of dawn were nowhere to be seen. Far off in the eastern sky was the faint light of a morning clouded by darkness. I ran across a plain hoping somehow to get ahead of the dark cloud, but it had already surpassed and now encompassed the whole of the earth I had known. I ran some great distance across the flat ground until I realized the darkness had settled over all existence and there was no further reason to run. As I looked out across the plain, I saw the glow of another blade. I could even see the faint reflection of the person who held it up swinging. Then I saw yet another more distant, and another. Where the chasm had gone, I did not know nor did I try to reason. I knew we were to stand and fight: with Joy and Praise and Song and Dance, with Glad Hearts we were to fight all darkness and evil that would come our way.

About my waist was Truth itself. And in my hand the sword of the Spirit of God bejeweled by the Joys of the Saints and Martyrs of Old. I would proclaim my stance and fight with the Heavenly Host on my side. I was filled with insight, filled with faith. I knew the darkness was all that which had ever been contrary to God. And I knew also that in my hand, and in the hands of others like me, was a fragment of His Light: the Second Coming of His Almighty Joy.

Then arrows flaming shot by and stuck in the dirt behind me. I raised the sword in one hand and shielded myself with my left arm. Immediately a shield of brilliant light formed on my arm and the next array of arrows bounced off it or broke as they hit. I stood firm. Courage, like no courage I had ever known, filled my breast and a plate of armor came over me, over my chest and shoulders with a pleat for my loins.

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