The Reckoning

"An unforgivable tragedy. The answer isn't where you think you'd find it. Prepare yourself for the reckoning. For when your world seems to crumble again."

     -Disturbed: "The Light"

"Listen, Epps, these (African Americans) are human beings. If they are allowed to climb no higher than brute animals, you and men like you will have to answer for it. There is an ill, Mr. Epps. A fearful ill resting upon this nation. And there will be a day of reckoning yet."

  -Samuel Bass, Canadian Abolitionist

If everyone knew with certainty the consequence of sins and evil and saw and felt the depth and suffering the wrath these things can and will summon, you'd never have another sinner or wicked man again.

Because of the uncertainty of the world, it is easy to be blinded to such consequences. In fact, the fog of doubt and uncertainty are so great in this world that you can deny the existence of any sort of eternal retribution or reward that comes from our actions in this life. 

 Because of how easy it is to deceive with all this uncertainty here, many people and many nations can be lured into committing atrocities or violations that they justify in the interests of the greater good, or even outright celebrate. 

Because of uncertainty and the inability for any human or any human agency to have any omniscience, human authorities often don't have the foresight or insight needed to prevent these atrocities...or realize that they are committing them themselves. 

Some of the worst violations of rights, oppression, atrocities and acts of murderous hate have been justified in the eyes of governments and authorities by that utilitarian "for the greater good" rationale. 

 We have done ungodly things to each other in the interests of bettering a more valued priority, whether that be money or a class of people deemed higher in worth and sanctity. 

In the many instances of moral and ethical blindness in humanity, we arrogantly assume that no one sees what we have done and that there is no higher law or higher being(s) of which we owe accountability to, and I think this is the greatest hubris of the powerful people of humanity...to assume there is no higher law than themselves.

Because of our moral blindness, some of us have committed atrocities that they even celebrate or take pleasure in. Like a disconnect from truth, they rejoice in the sufferings of the victims of their insanity and blind addiction to wrong. Because of uncertainty and a blatant disregard to the warnings of the past, much of humanity can easily be deceived into thinking there is no consequence for depravity, even deceived into thinking there is no higher governor. 

 We have had many reckonings in human history, some of which have been recounted in myths and legends, like the judgements of the world through floods or other wraths. Many prophets in the olden times warned people of the consequences of wrongness and always ended up being proven right even though they were completely disregarded and more often than not killed. 

 We have had reckonings for slavery, like the Civil War in the United States, and reckonings against predatory and hateful ideologies, like what happened in World War II against Germany. Reckonings can, and do happen. It's just not all of them have a clear divine source. Some of them can come from a general human sense of injustice and striving for justice.  

There will be a reckoning again for slavery (because we still haven't gotten rid of it) and it will come in due time. 

Even so, there will be an ultimate reckoning that will fall upon humanity in general for all that has been and is going on. Justice is more eternal then that dirt or the water or the air or the cities or the species of this world, and it is an inevitability not a possibility. 

 Even with the uncertainty and deception that enables many of us to doubt and disregard this truth, or even scoff it, justice is just as inevitable as death, because death claims both the just and unjust alike.