There is a chill in the air, a sharp assault on aging bones which despairs the soul of hope, a foreboding harbinger of winter fast approaching. Such unpleasant thoughts arrive too easily and far too often, paying obeisant homage to the rancorous bluster now become uncivil discourse. The vulgar vulgus has sent reason packing, snagged on tumbling tumbleweeds tossed by the wintry wind through the desert of moral discontent.
Enough with the opinions, enough with the polls, enough with the “survey says”! If it were not for opinions the world would be sane, news would be fact and common sense, and politicians and their media propagandists would have little or nothing to say. Oh, blessed silence!
Opinions are personal, demanding no allegiance to the truth, which is why we bristle if and whenever our opinions are challenged. We adamantly protest our opinion to be truth—and it may very well be—without a spoonful of fact to add to it. Opinions are by nature emotionally charged for we are personally invested, our egos so deeply involved we cannot nor dare not admit to any fault or crack or fissure, contravening truth be damned. Opinions are malleable, but it takes Mjöllnir to reshape them. There is no emotional weight to plain fact or ordinary truth, which is perhaps why so many choose to ignore or deny such bothersome trifles. Opinions take no effort to obtain and are just so much more interesting.
In his marvelous book Orthodoxy—which every Christian should read at least twice: once for the pure joy of reading great literature and another for the marvelous insights guaranteed to warm the cockles of your cold heart and concretized mind—G. K. Chesterton wrote, “Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision.” It seems to me should Chesterton now see the ungodly mess we have made of things in the unholy name of progress he would think we have all gone completely blind and batty, lacking any vision whatsoever. With neither a walking stick nor guide dog we are floundering in the dark believing we are making progress while getting nowhere but lost.
Late last year I wrote of my visit to New York City and trips to Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, the 911 Memorial, and attending the Broadway musical Come from away. I wrote then of the unforgettable moments in Philadelphia, of the visits to the Liberty Bell, and the sites where the first Congress and Senate met. It seems so far away now though less than ten months have gone by. The New York City I experienced then bears little resemblance to New York City today.
Something to really think about. Sixty-two years ago, C.S. Lewis wrote an essay for The Observer entitled “Willing Slaves of the Welfare State” in which he began by writing, “Progress means movement in a desired direction, and we do not all desire the same things for our species.”
Been thinking a lot—these pandemic days there is not much else to do—about church and state. The thought that keeps rising is “What would Jesus say—and do—if he were here and now?” Ran across something I wrote last year that reminded me of the answer.
Willful ignorance is a too-common condition afflicting a vast majority of the American population; of their own will, they ignore facts, sound advice, accurate information and the truth. Any attempt to educate, to enlighten, to elucidate is generally met with utter contempt. Their mind is made up, closed to new ideas, thoughts, facts, information, and truth. Such discomfiting knowing would clearly mess with their simple made-up minds; it is your mind, with its delusions, fabrications and conspiracy theories, that is messed up, not theirs.
Ever have one of those days—or nights—when something really creepy this way comes? Well, I have, the most recent was late last night just before I turned out the lights, and it was no ghost or bat in the belfry. I watched a terrifying video and it was no fantasy, no joke, but very real and unbelievably horrifying.
