Against All Things Ending

I look at moments, now. See them; experience them. Appreciate them. Appreciate the moment.

Against All Things Ending is the title of the final novel in the final series of the Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, as authored by Stephen R. Donaldson. The protagonist is an anti-hero; a bitter and isolated leper in our world, estranged from his wife and son, becoming entangled in an epic battle of good and evil in another world he is unwillingly drawn to during periods of unconsciousness. Another world where he appears to the inhabitants as the prophesied messiah of millennia before.

In the first series, he wrestles with his own demons as he fights evil minions in a world of magic, beauty, and grace. He roams the continent he was drawn to, meeting the various cultures and developing the friendships he needs to believe in himself.

His actions in the first series, though seemingly victorious in the short term, set the stage for his enemy’s domination of the land, gaining sufficient power to draw him plus a woman from our world back to the land. This time, the land that he knew has been ravaged, and he must seek help from foreign lands and not entirely unfamiliar cultures if he is going to defeat the enemy finally, and defeat the guilt that is restraining him from a growing relationship.

Time passes differently in the land than in the real world; minutes here seem as hours, weeks can seem as years.

The third series picks up after decades in our time, and the old enemy of the land now seeks nothing less than the destruction of the world and with it, the arch of time, to set him free from his mortal prison. In this series, our hero’s are but mice evading a large machine with its own momentum already moving. The end of things becomes more visible with each passing day and week, and our heros seem to be catalysts for the ending, such that all roads lead to ruin.

It is with that inevitability that I now mark time.

I believe the end of all things is near.

John’s Revelation is being realized. Time is short.

There are some things that can be done to prepare superficially, but unless these choices are guided by the Holy Spirit, they will be wholly inadequate. And ultimately pointless, in a strictly material perspective.

No, the only meaningful preparation in this period is to be certain of one’s relationship with the King of Kings, and to prepare others by helping them to know the Good News.

Otherwise, and in the meantime, and in spite of it, life must continue. Plans must be made, risks must be taken, life must be lived. Children, plants, and businesses must grow, thrive.

And so, in the gap between the two — this uncomfortable place which triggers and is my temporal claustrophobia — this gap I’ve known and anticipated and feared since infancy, in this gap I stand and reflect upon, participate in, the moment. Not in hope of, but in sure recollection and affirmation…. against all things ending.

For this age, too, shall pass away.

Glory!