Nate B Quill

Anxiety: 

I don’t know what tomorrow brings. 

I don’t know what the morning’s tests will bring. Perhaps for you it is the pressure of working a job for days to afford the right to live, a right given to you by God and taken from you by the people of the world. Day after day the problems of old repeat. We are continuously reminded of the haven of our fathers, but for us they left nothing but the crumbs of the feasts they had. From time to time I’ll snap, I’ll vow to throw it all away and live the life I want to live, but hours later I’m forced back to the habits of old, scavenging for crumbs till the day I die. The stress of life continues to build. To wake up today, a miracle of God.  

The mushrooms of yesteryear won’t leave my head. Tick tock, from 2 minutes, to 100 seconds, to now 90 we are forever reminded of the threats of the past. Tick tock we tick closer to midnight, the darkness that will envelope the world, the last sight we see before all fades to black. From the wars of old, to the wars of new we are forever reminded of the destruction that was and always has been. But still those stories will always feel like those of a far away land, a time before my own, attacks on a people that are not my own. Even with our neighbors holding the weapons of death to our heads we still cannot understand war, but we have seen the weapons used. We stare down the barrel of a gun loaded with the weapons of August 4th. A destruction my people have experienced before our own eyes. The threats continue to march towards us. To wake up tomorrow, a miracle of God.

For the weeks to pass is perhaps a miracle, but the future is nothing but a dream. We are ever reminded of the impossibilities of living the same prosperous life of those who came before us. We are reminded of the future our earth will never have. We are reminded of the growing holes in the blanket covering our earth, leaving us vulnerable to the attacks of a hostile universe. The thickened air and smog in the skies perhaps won’t kill our parents, perhaps not ourselves, but those who come after us might be left with a house beyond repair, a house that could never be a home. A land of fire and rain, a hell beyond our imagination, beyond what God ever imagined for the children he created in his image. The temperatures increase, and the deaths pile. For our kids to wake up, a miracle of God. 

I don’t know what tomorrow brings, and that’s okay, for today I have everything that I could ever want. Surrounding me is the country I choose to call home, the wonders of nature encompassing us at every corner. The magnum opus of God’s creation. Surrounding me are the people I choose to call my brothers and sisters, the strongest people on the green of our planet. The people who welcomed me into their home with open arms when I thought I had no place left to go. The many people of old have lived through the same challenges we face today, and we only know this because they lived to tell the tales, and now it’s our turn to do the same, to grow up and tell new tales to our children of the hardships we not only endured, not only lived through, but persevered in spite of. 

To wake up tomorrow is a miracle of God, brought to us through a country unlike any other, the country I call home, Lebanon.