Hello, Everyone!

Hello, Everyone! 

My name is Terrance H., a newly installed content contributor at Sifting Reality! Many of you have conversed with me in the comment section over the years, but now I’m going to be writing an occasional oeuvre for the blog itself. Most of the writing will revolve around religion and humanity. I’ll leave the politics to John B.

I have no special training in religion or psychology, so I don’t write from a position of authority. I am a photographer by trade, but I am a socially conservative Christian with a few opinions I wish to share. I do have a blog of my own, but it’s devoted entirely to History & Genealogy, so John B. was gracious enough to give me a platform more suitable for my social commentary.

Without further ado, I will share some of my thoughts.

Religion & Humanity Part 1 

The Garden of Eden. It must have been a beautiful sight. Surely, a world so certain of love possesses an unfettered elegance unimaginable to modern man; an elegance and beauty too scarce to risk.

And so how could Adam & Eve have erred so badly? Perhaps because they knew nothing of sorrow, for their lips never grazed the cruel, acerbic tang of pain & suffering. To them, the alternative to Eden was unknown.

But we know it well, don’t we? And so the question must be asked: Are human beings incapable of defining their reality apart from pain & suffering? Misery & dread? Could this be true?

It pains me to argue the affirmative. It is, I think, manifestly true that human beings are most happy when they’re miserable.

How often do you scroll past the seemingly endless complaints of Facebook friends? How often do you complain yourself?

How many public displays of drama have you witnessed? How many in which you had the staring role?

How many “he said, she said” discussions have you lumbered past in the grocery store? How many have you had?

And have you ever bothered to thumb the pages of history, or even a newspaper? Why is somebody always on trial for murder? Why are children, the purest human beings, always molested, kidnapped, murdered, or starving?

As time goes on, the margin of good news gets slimmer, the paragraphs shorter, and humanity sinks deeper into the abyss. Simple acts of kindness, like a policeman buying an indigent man a pair of shoes, become Internet sensations. Why? Why is real love so foreign to us now?