{"id":1658,"date":"2022-05-20T08:28:45","date_gmt":"2022-05-20T12:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=1658"},"modified":"2022-05-20T08:28:45","modified_gmt":"2022-05-20T12:28:45","slug":"the-real-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2022\/05\/20\/the-real-story\/","title":{"rendered":"The Real Story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Just a few months ago, most Americans couldn\u2019t have located Ukraine on a map.
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Even after saturation coverage of that nation\u2019s plight since Russia\u2019s invasion last February, few people are aware that Ukraine has been intermittently trampled by powerful neighbors from both the east and the west over the past two centuries.\u00a0 Every recent generation of Ukrainians has been burdened with searing memories of pain and loss.\u00a0
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That reality was on the mind of 24-year-old performance artist Kseniya Simonova when she entered the televised competition Ukraine\u2019s Got Talent<\/em> in 2009.\u00a0
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Simonova excels at sand animation, an unusual artform in which sand is spread on the flat surface of a lightbox, then maneuvered by one\u2019s hands into shapes that are projected onto a screen.\u00a0 Sand animation is a unique way to tell a story.\u00a0
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Kseniya was advised to present something happy and inspiring.\u00a0 She had a different idea.\u00a0 \u201cI just want to bring some immortal sense to this show\u2026 something close to all hearts.\u201d\u00a0 Thus she created a sand story about a young Ukrainian couple who fall in love but are torn apart by the ravages of the Nazi invasion in World War II.\u00a0
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Simonova not only won the competition, but her eight-and-a-half-minute performance has been viewed more than two million times on YouTube.\u00a0 You can watch it here<\/a>.
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It\u2019s easy to see why her ever-changing images, accompanied by sound effects and a heartrending song, evoked such deep emotions from the judges and audience members.\u00a0 This wasn\u2019t just a<\/u><\/em> story.\u00a0 This was their<\/u><\/em> story \u2013 a memorial to the six million Ukrainians who died during World War II, and an evocation of the never-ending yearning that Ukrainian children might one day experience lives of peace and security.\u00a0
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People sometimes describe the Bible as a happy and inspiring book \u2013 something akin to a fairy tale that floats above the real world.\u00a0
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This is fairly strong evidence that such people have never actually read the Bible.
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The pages of scripture never flinch from reporting the raw details of human history.\u00a0 The real story of the real world is marked by disillusionment, loss, and tears.
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But behind the painful details there is a larger Story, one with an upper case \u201cS.\u201d It is the good Story that is being orchestrated by a good and gracious God.\u00a0 And it will end not as the cosmologists predict \u2013 with the Big Crunch or the Big Chill or the Big Rip, as astronomer Neil DeGrasse Tyson suggested just last week \u2013 but with Big Grace, a redeemed reality in which \u201cthy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven\u201d will finally come true.\u00a0
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Kseniya Simonova ends her sand performance with three enigmatic words: You Always Near.\u00a0<\/em>
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She seems to be saying that even in the midst of the worst that the world can throw at us, our nearness to each other can see us through.\u00a0
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Followers of Jesus cling to a stronger promise:
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\u201cI have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.\u00a0 In this world you will have trouble.\u00a0 But take heart! I have overcome the world\u201d (John 16:33).
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Because He<\/em> is always near, we can see beyond this world\u2019s tears to the Story that will one day redeem everything.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just a few months ago, most Americans couldn\u2019t have located Ukraine on a map.\u00a0Even after saturation coverage of that nation\u2019s plight since Russia\u2019s invasion last February, few people are aware that Ukraine has been intermittently trampled by powerful neighbors from both the east and the west over the past two centuries.\u00a0 Every recent generation of Ukrainians has been burdened with… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1659,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[112],"class_list":["post-1658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-suffering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1658"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1660,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658\/revisions\/1660"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}