A Morning For Epiphany

     “Discovery of my task is my task. It is like that with us higher life forms.” – Robert Sheckley, “Tripout”

     Epiphanies can’t be scheduled. They choose their own moments. (And I think that will go into the LIS Codex once I’ve finished this piece.)

     Say, did you know that blogs – “weblogs,” as they were originally known – were at first used as a kind of diary? I have no idea how many people used them that way, or whether anyone still does, but that was their origin. Sites such as LiveJournal catered to such users.

     Blogging is past its heyday, on account of the rise of the “social media” sites. Constructing and maintaining a blog takes thought, expense, and effort, whereas dribbling the occasional emission onto Facebook or X is easy and free. Those of us who elect to undertake the work and expense of blogging have times when we ask ourselves why we bother. Who reads our inanities? Who cares what we have to say?

     That may have been part of what caused blogging to decline. At its peak there were many millions of blogs. I have no idea how many are maintained today, but it’s surely a much smaller number. And whether you like it or not, Gentle Reader, the majority of them blather mainly about politics.

***

     I did say a few days back that I’m planning a shift in my personal emphasis here. I’ll still comment on the political / current affairs stuff, but I expect that I’ll be posting more material that’s outside that orbit – possibly way, way outside. For starters, consider this recent report and its implications:

     The legacy media often portrays the rise of irreligion as harmless—merely a matter of Americans owning up to their declining belief in God—but a groundbreaking new study reveals a terrifying correlation between the increase of Americans who identify with no religion and upticks in rape and suicide rates.
     […]
     “If the parents want to choose religious schools and want to preserve the religious faith of their children, well, my research indicates that’s going to be very good for everyone,” Philip Truscott told The Daily Signal in a Zoom interview Tuesday. A sociologist who earned his Ph.D. from the University of Surrey in England, Truscott taught as a professor of sociology at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Missouri, for 10 years, ending in July.
     If religion makes a comeback, “everybody’s less likely to be a rape victim, everybody will have less need for public expenditure on mental health, because for every completed suicide, you get like 10 that are attempted suicides,” he said.

     Well, well! Religion as a counteractant to suicide and rape! Who could have predicted that?

     Note that Truscott avoids specifying a religion. He blesses our choice among them. Yet there is one “religion” that’s openly friendly toward rape, so let’s exclude that one. (As a Briton, he may have feared a backlash, even prosecution, had he chosen to say that openly.) The principal religions of the First World are all Christian. The percentages of Jews, Buddhists, Taoists, Shintoists, and so forth in the First World may be neglected for the purposes of this tirade. At least, I intend to neglect them.

     Christian faith defends one against many temptations to unacceptable behavior. It was also a powerful defense against social isolation. Note the past tense of the previous verb: was. It could be that again, if persons who claim to be Christians would make some effort to reach out to their fellows and cultivate relationships. But one must ask why, or noticing the correlation will do us no good.

     I think the key is meaning.

***

     Some time ago, I wrote:

     For a life to have meaning, it must have a purpose. (Granted that one possible purpose is to be a bad example, but the principle holds nevertheless.) But for a life to have meaning also requires an interpreter – and that Interpreter, for reasons that approach tautology, must stand above that which He interprets.
     […]
     He who has confidence that his life has a meaning is already there, even if he’s not sure what purpose his life is intended to serve. He who becomes certain that he has a purpose to serve – Christians have traditionally called this a commission — must have a notion about Who assigned it to him. While that begs the question of which must come first, it also reinforces the linkages among faith, hope, and confidence.

     People have made fun of the phrase “the meaning of life.” They’ve twisted and distorted it in many ways. But I’m convinced that the ever more common lack of a sense of meaning to one’s life is a great part of our current maladies: personal, social, and political. And meaning is something that Christian faith provides to every life. It’s inseparable from Christian theology and Christian ethics, both.

     At the very least, this is consistent with the Truscott study cited above.

***

     One of the great failings of our time is the great decrease in willingness to speak plainly, especially if we fear that some clown might be “offended.” Even Catholic priests have muted themselves somewhat – a terrible thing for persons under Holy Orders to conserve and promulgate the teachings of Christ. But right and wrong, good and bad, constructive and destructive have not changed. Even the preachers of moral and cultural relativism know that. The proof is in the way they conduct their own lives.

     The great playwright David Mamet said that a few years back. He observed in print that he’d lived in a manner entirely opposed to the sociopolitical values he’d claimed to hold. He refused to do so any longer, thus crossing from Left to Right. His candor scandalized his colleagues.

     This makes clear – and proof against any imaginable argument to the contrary – that for the great majority of our serious ills, politics is not the answer. Yet the Left strives to marginalize Christianity and politicize everything. What should that tell an intelligent reader of Liberty’s Torch?

     Gentle Reader, have a morning epiphany on me. No backsies. What you choose to do with it is your affair. And may God bless and keep you all.

2 comments

    • BillHoff on November 20, 2024 at 9:55 AM

    This website has been my first stop on the web for many, many years. I’ve purchased all of your books (really, really liked “Love in the Time of the Cinema” and “The Warm Lands”, even tho Amazon won’t allow me to review any books.) Part of the reasons for this has been your approach to ethics and spirituality. I feel that I’m a better man for it, and I aim to continue to appreciate it. Thanks,

    Bill

     

    1. Thank you! That was uncommonly gratifying to read.

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