Sacrifice 🗡️

 Are you willing to sacrifice in order to achieve your dreams?

    Before you become anything, you must become nothing first. Such a simple question, such a simple statement. Honestly, I hate even using the word dreams. Dreams are a word to describe experiences outside of reality. What we live here, in this life, is reality. Dreams are not what is necessary in order to achieve them. Goals are. Goals are what will get you from point A to point B, not dreams. Dreams are meant to show you the way- they’re meant to guide you. But goals, goals are meant to show you the path. I take those two words very serious, because I understand the power behind them. I understand the significance of separating the two. 

    Sacrifice is something which most people hear of, but very few know. The cost behind attempting to achieve all that you wish to achieve here in this lifetime. It is the token for which we gamble on all future endeavours, for better or for worse. Men understand that in order to become who they wish to be, sacrifice is in order. Ancient civilizations used to sacrifice individuals and animals to the gods, as a form of payment for which they wished for aid. I believe it was the Mayans, who would select a child from an early age, to be a human sacrifice, and prepare them for the role. They would keep the child isolated from the other children, all while spoiling him with food and goods. The child would spend a year of their life, being treated like royalty, before finally being hauled off to the temple to be sacrificed to their gods. 

    Now, I’m definitely not advocating for that kind of sacrifice. In fact, I would stronger speak out against it. Human sacrifice has been a tradition which has been going on for millenniums, and still goes on to this day. There are individuals in society who continue to pursue the same course of action, in hopes of offering payment to some sort of deity from another realm. This mentality is barbaric, to say the least. However, many do stand firm on this belief. When you think about it, the math checks out. We, as a society, are fixated on Science in this day and age. A cult-like mentality, where we surrender belief to magic numbers and equations. We have accepted them as the truth, and nothing less. The irony of it all is that in science, Einstein clearly states that in order to go from point A to B, you have to leave something behind. Maybe that’s not exactly what he says, but you catch the drift. Sacrifice. To get to where you’re going, you must be willing to leave something behind.

    Interstellar is my favourite movie of all time. No question about it. I’ve rewatched it so many times at this point, I could probably recite it from beginning to end. I won’t. But I can. One of the final scenes, where Cooper goes thru the blackhole in order to help Dr. Brand get to the final planet, he sacrifices himself and lets go of their ship, into the unknown. This scene was always powerful to me, because of the sacrifice required by Cooper. Now obviously, it was just a movie. It was a scripted scene, filmed on a green screen somewhere in Hollywood. Regardless, the sentiment remains. The requirements of sacrifice are no different. In order to move forward, Cooper must be left behind. Something that resonates true in every single situation. The cost of success is the courage of failure. Cooper understood that Dr. Brand’s success likely meant his failure. That was something he was willing to accept. He understood that the mission was all that mattered, and that his life was inconsequential in the grand calculus of the Universe. He understood that there was something greater than himself.

    Dr. Strange also uses that line, in Marvel’s The Avengers. If you can’t tell by now, I’m kind of a huge fan. He constantly reminds Tony Stark that in the grand scheme of things, his life is a mere nothing in the overall plan which the Universe holds for all of them. He reminds him that, despite his enormous ego, the Universe is greater than all of them. Not only does he remind them- he demonstrates it as well. Dr. Strange willingly sacrifices himself, in order to allow Tony and the rest of the team a chance to win. He surrenders the Time Stone to the mighty Titan, Thanos, in exchange for Tony’s life. Another sacrifice, based upon unwavering faith. The process of stepping into the unknown, believing that there is something greater at play.

    Walking on faith can be a scary subject. In fact, most people do not understand it all together. We as a species, have been programmed to believe that Science is the answer to all our problems. That these numbers run the entire Universe, responsible for everything and everyone. That we are completely insignificant, simply specs of dust in the wind, floating around within a grand calculation. While that may be true, and we may be nothing more than ants roaming the Universe- it doesn’t tell the who truth. The whole truth for which why we, the ants, have the freedom to roam in the first place. Science can tell of how, but it can’t tell us why. We accept it as some sort of all-knowing, all-powerful magic, which determines much of our actions here in this life. Yet still, it betrays us. It fails us, over and over again. No matter how hard to try to compute and calculate, there is always more to the equation.

    Free will cannot be measured. It can be examined, observed, even tested. However, it cannot be measured. Great men throughout history understood this. If life were nothing more than a calculation, men would have quit long ago. How many nations were founded on impossible odds? How many wars ere fought, with zero chance of victory? How many victories have been achieve, on the certainty of death? The reality is, life cannot be computed. The human spirit cannot be reduced down to a simple fraction or number. The fight which lies within us, is something that cannot be sold. We may face terrible odds, we may even face death himself before us- but we may never know certainty against the will of men. There can be no winning without loss. There can be no future, without cost. 

    There can be no victory, without sacrifice.

        Glory Be,

                    Amen.