Over?

Nothing is over until it’s over.  The baseball clich? has been with us for a long time, yet somehow it still hasn’t sunk in as deeply as it could and should.  I find myself following in the trap on both sides – celebrating before the line is cross, giving up while there is still time and room in which to push towards the goal.  Yogi Berra was right; things are never over until they are over.
 
Today is an opportunity to rediscover how much and far we can go.  I realize I’m  caught in the trap of conceding before the finish line.  It is as if I am doomed to repeat and then repeat history again.  When things turn I begin to celebrate or grabble with an invisible struggle.  In one story of old, “in the year King Ahaz died, this Message came: Hold it, Philistines!  It's too soon to celebrate the defeat of your cruel oppressor.  From the death throes of that snake a worse snake will come, and from that, one even worse.” (Isaiah 14.28, 29)  Nothing is over until it is over.
 
Is the person struggling to survive in the heart of New York already lost?  Is the only response to terror a call to arms?  Can we find and muster the courage to answer pain with compassion?
 
It is relatively easy to ask the questions.  The challenge is to move beyond the questions into action.  Initially I caught myself trying to take on great mountains and overwhelming waves.  The question is actually quite different.  The heart is found in the present you and I find our souls in.  Great causes are fine, but rarely are we called to fight these battles.  Our battles can be found in the present, immediate, and now.  These are great moments in which we have the freedom to decide what the future will mean – not only for those around us but for our “soul”. 
 
Yesterday can inform and shape.  Yesterday need not dictate what happens now.  Everything is possible.  Life is within our reach.  Divinity resides within.