Access all previous posts in this series here.

Phyllis Beveridge Nissila

It occurs to me, just one and one-half years from the original post, below, we can use the reminder therein many times more so today given the rate of deception and destruction that has been occurring since 2019.

But even though the darkness is so much more intense, the light is still brighter and more powerful, if we seek it–if we seek Him.

Trouble is, the darkness presses in so much more and clamors ever more loudly for our attention it is hard to remember not only the power of the light, both literal and spiritual, but also evil’s inevitable end.

But it’s coming.

Be encouraged.

Carry on.

“The Kraken 2.0” (On Evil’s Proper End)

Originally posted on October 31, 2019 

Kraken?

These days when evil seems to be metastisizing like stage 4 cancer, fattening on power, insolence, and presumption [update 2021: and lawlessness], I am reminded of “The Kraken,” both the sea monster from Scandinavian folklore and Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem of the same name.

I am reminded that although evil does spread as fast and as wild as evil-mongers can get away with, like cancer, it only has so much “margin” to invade and destroy before it perishes, too, lacking else to overcome or overcome itself by a power greater.

I am also reminded that evil, lacking the wisdom of restraint and/or prodded by fear, always overplays its hand.

In the meantime, however, it enlarges…

From the folklore: “The Kraken is a legendary cephalopod-like sea monster of giant size in Scandinavian folklore. According to the Norse sagas, the kraken dwells off the coasts of Norway and Greenland and terrorizes nearby sailors.”

From Tennyson’s poem: This Kraken sleeps beneath the waters fattening (“battening”) on “huge sea worms” in his sleep, “(until) the latter fire shall heat the deep […] once by man and angels to be seen [until] roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.”

This sea monster is a type of evil.

Which brings me to the present time when, you might say,

The kraken fattens cell by cell,

by thought by word and deed.

In murky depths,

hid grots and caves

to seed and feed and breed.

But comes an afternoon or morn

or silent moonless night,

the ne’er-sated beast

will surface break

to twist and roar and die.

No longer will the cancer spread

to unsuspecting parts

but the power greater,

truth in hand,

will vanquish rotted hearts.

Or you could say, “The LORD works out everything to its proper end– even the wicked for a day of disaster’ (Proverbs 16:4, NIV).