no country for old men

The movie closes with Sheriff Bell describing a dream, one morning of his retirement, of his death. He looks defeated, much sadder than I have ever seen Tommy Lee Jones. He bears witness to a changing world. He recalls a time when back country sheriffs were not even armed and yet finds himself following the trail of a pyschopath who kills on prinicple--over drugs and money. Powerless and impotent, he retires, it seems, because he just no longer knows what to do. He counted on God to come with old age and is disheartened to feel as if that never happened. No longer a man of courage, perhaps even no longer a man of principle, he drinks his coffee with his lifelong wife, unsure of how to spend his days.

To an idealist in her twenties, this may be a fate worse than death. To fade away, seeing the horror of the world and doing nothing--withdrawing, devoid of hope. How do you bear witness to the world, even seeing your efforts to save, to help, to fix, or to serve (no matter how you think of it...) fail, and keep on going? The simplest answer when looking at this character is to hang onto hope, and for many of us, this come from faith--whether in God or in something else. Sheriff Bell lost hope and faith. How, over the long term, when investigating the horror as the Sheriff does--staring it straight in the face--do we keep the faith?