“By God, Excalibur!”

I’ve been thinking about how to live in these contentious days. It does not seem to be getting easier to be a civilized person. And to be a follower of Jesus during all the hatred that is coming from the highest of offices is quite a challenge.

As I was praying this morning, I remembered a drawing that I have yet to hang up in my new home. (We’ve not hung any pictures yet.) Thirty years ago I met an artist in Hendersonville who did wonderful works with crayon and ink. She made a drawing for me of my favorite quote from Camelot (based on the book The Once and Future King, by T.H White). Here’s the quote:

“By God, Excalibur, I shall be a King! This is the time of King Arthur, and we reach for the stars! This is the time of King Arthur, and violence is not strength and compassion is not weakness. We are civilized! Resolved: We shall live through this together, Excalibur: They, you and I! And God have mercy on us all.”

Violence is not strength and compassion is not weakness! I love it!

Excalibur was the mighty sword Arthur drew from the stone. What if we decided that our Excalibur would be the “Word of God” (see Ephesians 6:7), and that Word is Jesus (John 1)? Could we live empowered by the Spirit, so that we faced this world with compassion? Could we actually be different from the prevailing crowd?

To quote Arthur from another movie, “It is a dream I have….”