The Last Unicorn

As I sit up in bed, the exhaustion teems over my eyes, but still sleep escapes me. Like the love you can never quite hold on to, so too lately is undisturbed sleep. So numerous are the unconnected thoughts that swarm in my mind that were they colors, the greatest of Klimt's masterpieces would still pale in comparison to the sea of pigment it would produce. But amidst the rushing thoughts and the din I create in my mind, there is one thing that brings me peace - the image of a small porcelain unicorn.

As a child I had such the fascination with the enchantments of childrens' fairytales. I was awed by the simple beauty in a kind woodland maiden aiding a lost creature, or the nobility with which a noble steed would stand by his master. It seemed more than just "too good to be true," for I really believed that kindness and mercy existed in the world. All I knew, is that somewhere there had to be a place where my favorite of playtime fantasies, the Unicorn, existed.

And why shouldn't it? Lonely streets and cold nights numbered many in our silent and fearful world, but I had always felt warm. So many lived without a home, but I had one. And so, I began to love unicorns. And when I moved away from my first best friend, she gave me a small porcelain unicorn to connect us, for always. I remember it well - it had a main of rainbow colors that were far brighter in my mind than they could ever have been represented by cheap paint in the uninspired spectrum it had been painted. It was small enough to fit in my cupped hands, tiny though they were, but big enough to fill my whole heart.

As I grew, many other depictions of this fair creature began to mark the shelves and spaces of my humble bedroom. But no matter how beautiful each new addition was, no matter how intricate the detailing or the awesome talent each new artist had for her art, no image or figure could take the place of that one tiny icon. I remember talking to it when I moved away from all my friends as a little girl. I remember holding it when I wished I could go back to my "old home," where everything was alright. And as the years passed and I perhaps had grown to like my new home, I would still glance at it, or hold it, whenever I was disheartened because it reminded me of the beauty of true friendship. I recall often with a smile, and perhaps even a small tear, the day my prized possession broke in half. My mother understood that I could not just throw the gift away! She knew that none of the others would matter without this one precious pearl. She helped me glue it back together and proudly I continued to display it as if everyone else would also be indifferent to the obvious crack all around my little unicorn's neck.

As I grew, I lost my affinity for child-like knick-knacks in my room, and one by one, my unicorns disappeared. They grew old or shabby or tacky with the changing of the seasons [and my moods] and were gradually thinned out. But not the one - the Last of my Unicorns. I still have that unicorn, wrapped in tissue paper in my hope chest. From time to time I take it out and stroke it and remember...The thing about the unicorn, is that she represented mercy and justice. She protected all the creatures in her forest, and if she left it they would all be in danger. All those who were truly good knew her when they saw her. But then, so did all those who were truly evil. Much like the soldier of Christ, she is easily recognized by both friend and foe.

But what of the Last Unicorn? She would have hardly anyone left to recognize her in eyes of love. What would it be like to be known by your enemies, but by very few friends? What would it be like to stand for good and justice, and still go unrecognized by most?

I saw a man, a man whom I knew to be evil in my recent travels. He is large, he is powerful, and I am not. He owns much, I own little. He commands attention, I am just a small woman. But when he saw me, he stared at me. And when he stared at me, I could tell he knew me, and the one who sent me. God's army is full of Last Unicorns.

THE LAST UNICORN

When the last eagle flies
Over the last crumbling mountain
And the last lion roars
At the last dusty fountain
In the shadow of the forest
Though she may be old and worn
They will stare unbelieving
At the Last Unicorn

When the first breath of winter
Throught the flowers is icing
And you look to the north
And a pale moon is rising
And it seems like all is dying
And would leave the world to mourn
In the distance hear her laughter
It's the Last Unicorn
I'm alive... I'm alive

When the last moon is cast
Over the last star of morning
And the future is past
Without even a last desparate warning
Then look into the sky where through
The cloudes a path is formed
Look and see her how she sparkles
It's the Last Unicorn
I'm alive... I'm alive.

What My Life is For...

FROM GARY HAUGEN'S THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT INJUSTICE

Anyone who has spent time with infants knows what amazing machines of tireless learning and curiosity they are. We can also see that during an early stage of development, an infant has no capacity to maintain interest in anything that is not immediately before its eyes. When a brightly colored ball or rattle is held up before babies, their attention is riveted on it. Their eyes seize on the new item with urgent curiosity. They display an almost compulsive urge to touch it, feel it, embrace it. But move the toy out of sight and infants lose all interest. They do not look for it. They do not try to bring back the hand that took the toy away. The do not express any disappointment that the toy is no longer there to explore. As far as child psychologists are able to discern, to babies the toy ceases to exist the very moment it is removed from sight. They have not yet developed the mental capacity for object permanence, that is, the understanding that objects exist even when they are out of sight. It is truly a case of out of sight, out of mind.

I must confess that this is very much the way my mind often works when it comes to maintaining an interest in the reality of injustice in our world. I read about innocent people being slaughtered in Rwanda on page A1 of the Washington Post, and I am appalled. But my mind moves onto other things with amazing speed and thoroughness when I read on page D15 that the movie [I was] hoping to see actually starts a half hour earlier than [I] thought. When I read about the way abandoned orphan girls in China are tied to their bed rails and left to starve and die in state-run orphanages, I am very nearly moved to tears. But a year later when a conversation with a friend reminds me of the article, I realize that I have not shed a tear, uttered a prayer or even given it thought since the day I put down that newspaper article. I can move from torture on the evening news to touchdowns on Monday Night Football with almost the same mental and emotional ease as my channel changer.

Of course, much of this is perfectly natural and probably healthy. I do not aspire to be someone with a psychotic fixation on evil and human suffering. It s a poorly lived life that cannot experience joy, peace, laughter, beauty, and mirth despite all the oppression and injustice that mars the goodness of God's creation. If the evening news or the morning paper keeps me from [going] to a movie, from laughing at [] stories or from enjoying the exhilaration of a bike ride on a crisp fall day, then something is surely out of balance.

But we can grow into a more mature way of engaging the reality of injustice in our world if we take just two steps: (1) We can develop a compassion for the people suffering injustice by looking through the eyes of missionaries and other Christian workers who see this suffering firsthand, and (2) we can prepare ourselves to help people by looking at them through God's eyes, that is, through his Word.

Perhaps a next step in our development as children of God is a capacity for compassion permanence - a courageous and generous capacity to remember the needs of an unjust world even they are out of our immediate sight. Not content with the infant's out-of-sight, out-of-mind approach, God calls us to a grown-up capacity to engage a world of oppression with our heart and mind, even though (thankfully) it is not always before our eyes.