The easy thing to notice on Big Hollow Trail at Mammoth Cave National Park is the trees. Oak, poplar, maple, beech, all rising a hundred or more feet above your head. You can’t see the tops of many of them from the ground. If my wife and I stood on opposite sides and hugged the trunks, our fingers still could not touch. They are ancient and enormous and clearly dominant. What could possibly bring them down?

A lot of things, actually.

Years ago, when I taught Bible classes, students were always surprised to learn that the book of Revelation had nothing to do with a rapture or dispensational age or god-awful Kirk Cameron movies. It is, at its core, a book about power.

Not that John of Patmos talks about such things directly. That’s not the style of poets, and anyway it would have been impossible for anyone to criticize the ancient Roman government head-on. If he had shared a fake video of a sombrero-clad Nero humping a couch (a la Stephen Colbert and JD Vance), John would have been dead before the first outraged hot take hit the ancient talk shows.

No. Best to let images make the argument for him. Lo and behold, the influence of John’s Apocalypse has far outlasted the power of the Roman Empire.

Revelation depicts power as a dragon which serves as puppet master for a seven-headed beast, all snarl and bluster. The beast rises and takes over. People marvel at it, get in line behind it, throw their worship to it. Best to become friends with the beast, regardless of its atrocities. After all, you can’t stop it.

Just like you can’t stop AI slop or the “enshittification” of American culture. (Props to Cory Doctorow for the verbiage.)

Just like you can’t stop the rape of our planet or the willful stupidity of climate-change deniers.

Just like you can’t stop the capitulation of businesses or news outlets or universities to the GOP culture warriors.

Just like you can’t stop—

Well, you get the idea. Bow down to the beast! You will never win against it.

Except…

Power has reason to be afraid—especially power that relies on fear and coercion. Even the tallest trees are vulnerable.

Beetles.

Wind.

Internal rot.

Age.

Lightning.

Disease.

It doesn’t matter how big a tree is or how powerful it looks. Something will bring it down eventually, whether in a dramatic moment or through slow decay by unseen causes. Often when it falls you can see weakness that was there all along, out of sight but no less deadly.

Any walk through the forest will tell you as much.