He first imagined what it would be like to actually see his name and the names of his loved ones written into Daniel's "Book of Salvation." He imagined the absolute elation of what it would be like to know for certain that eternal bliss awaited him and those closest to him. But then his mind drifted to the other part of what Daniel's vision imagines: the destruction of the earth. All at once, a sense of loss and sadness surprised him, and he imagined asking God:
"Lord, out of the great chaos, didn't you look upon the formless mass, grasp it, and with your potter's hands, shape it into a perfect sphere? With broad strokes of your artist's brush, didn't you paint it in radiant color? And didn't you then take the sphere gently into your hands and carefully start it on its maiden voyage, traveling forward so smoothly that never would there be felt on earth even the slightest bump or hint of turbulence as your magnificent, favored planet proceeded on its journey? And millennia later, didn't astronauts stare out in awe at the same sphere, sending back to the world a stunning picture of "the blue and white marble"?
"If it is true, it must be true also that, when you contemplate destroying what you have so painstakingly and lovingly created, you must feel great sadness and regret....
"For despite the evil that has entered into your world, do you not still see in us the spirit of your children, newly awakened in the garden, excited as they lived and played, growing in love and joy and happiness?
"Because despite humanity's wretched sin—sin that reaches back long before the time of Daniel even—you have held back your hand from destruction.
"Amid all this beauty you provide us, with every new generation in every new century, do you not hope over and over again that by their own free will all your people will at long last embrace your message of compassion?
"For on the horizon, Lord, I see hope in the newest generation. Even now, many of today's children have, in a wonderful reversal, begun leading parents and grandparents away from senseless prejudices, unburdening them of hatred and discrimination. Today's children are often protective of the weak and the marginalized, the physically and intellectually disabled. They focus not on the differences between races, but see themselves as part of the human family. They respect others' religions; they look beyond gender, ethnic, and language differences—differences that were, in the past, bases for division and conflict. These children are growing up in a world that has outlawed crimes of hatred, of abuse and discrimination; laws which, had they existed in Antiochus's world—or Hitler's, or Stalin's or Amin's—might have formed a very different world culture today.
"Could the twenty-first century be a time when the coldness of hatred dissolves in the warm, healing waters of love? When all people in their own way and in their own language declare that you, the Lord of love and compassion, are the one true God? Might this generation yet bring to your eye a tear of joy?"
