My wife knows how to give gifts and make an everyday thing a special event. She asked me what I wanted to do to mark my recent birthday since it was something of a milestone. I respond with uncharacteristic directness – I wanted a river cruise aboard the Tennyson with a few of my friends and family. She made it happen.
We boarded the boat in the late afternoon/early evening with around twenty others who wanted to give up their time on a Sunday to spend three hours cruising around Solomons Island and up the Patuxent River. Because storms were in the forecast, I constantly joked with Alicia Joy about Giligan’s three hour tour. It fell flat as she’d never seen the show. Yes, marrying a younger woman does have it’s catches. The storms never did materialize until much later in the evening.
When we were out of the dock and well on our way, it was time to say a blessing over the food and eat. I asked Ken to perform the honors. Prior to the prayer he challenged me to answer three questions – “What was my best moment of the past year?” “What was my worst moment?” And the “Buffalo” which I understand to mean “What’s on your mind?” The first question was pretty easy, because I was living it in the moment. Before me were some (but not all) of my best friends. My family was there, including Alicia Joy’s parents, my step children, my daughters Hannah and Grace, and some of my bonus in-law family, Ken and Ann (“bonus” because they are Alicia Joy’s late husband’s family who’ve pretty much adopted me). Pat, who I’ve known the better part of fifty years and is one of the few people who can call me “Jimmy” without risk of physical harm. Todd and Shirley who’ve been rock solid friends through the good and the bad. And the Sisters – Sr. Faith and Sr. Angus Dei – new friends to me, but part Alicia Joy’s former community, the Sisters of Life (SV). Everyone there helped to make that moment the best part of my year.
As for the worst, I can’t really remember what I said. I was so in the moment I could not bring any of the troubles of the past year to mind, until Alicia Joy reminded me of the great chicken raid the night of Easter when I lost 90 broiler chickens to a fox attack. Yes, dark days indeed. I don’t think I really slept through the night for the next several weeks as I was up at all hours to secure the safety of my flock and rid the farm of foxes gone rogue (why can’t they just eat rabbit? We’ve plenty of rabbit…).
Then there was the Buffalo Question. I kicked the can down the road until we were off the boat. Which is probably a good thing, because once someone gives me an opportunity to talk, I tend to “maximize” the event. So what have I been thinking about?
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the state of our nation and the state of the Catholic Church. Because this is Independence Day (though you’ll probably to read this til later in the week), I’ll confine myself to the former. We live in a nation built upon a secular creed. To my knowledge, ours was the first such nation in the world, the idea of dividing the world into “secular” and “sacred” being an idea coming out of the “Enlightenment,” itself a product of the Protestant revolt. Though the First Amendment to the Constitution sought to prohibit the establishment of a state church (like the Church of England), the popular understanding of this amendment is a complete separation of church and state. The further erosion of religious liberty occurred under the Obama Administration as it sought to redefine religious liberty as the “freedom of worship,” a subtle slight of hand confining ones religious observance to a set period of time during the week. How dare nuns object to having to pay for contraception in their state mandated health insurance plans!
The problem with a secular society is the fact it can’t really exist, simply for the fact that as human being, we are inherently religious. We will worship something, whether it is Taylor Swift, Facebook, or whatever. Most often today, I think we are into worshipping ourselves via consumerism.
The way the religious wars of the 17th century finally came to a halt was a shift away from the divisions caused by the Protestant revolt (and yes, I am fully aware Martin Luther confronted a Catholic Church that was in need of reform, but that’s a much longer essay) was by the adoption of a consumerist mentality. The Dutch were the first, soon followed by the English. My own Maryland was a colony established with the idea of religious tolerance in mind. The purpose behind these colonies was economic, especially in the South.
Nearly four hundred years later, we live in Aldous Huxley’s world. We congratulate ourselves for so far having avoided Orwell’s prophecy, blinded to the reality our nation would crumble without the constant churning of the data centers. We actually don’t know who is running the executive branch. It surely cannot be the man who appeared at the debate the other night. We have long since past the point of constitutional government, for such a government requires honest men and women who have a deep religious conviction. The secular state requires a people of religious bearing to safeguard it from itself. It is telling of where we are in this regard when a Supreme Court Justice expresses just such a position and it is treated as though it were a scandal. There must always be a line drawn which cannot be crossed. The pursuit of power for the sake of power will always turn to evil. Just ask Frodo.
“Live not by lies.” As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote, the first act of resistance to tyranny is simply to tell the truth and refuse to participate in the lie. The lie is all around us as evil people subtly repurpose words like “democracy” and “gender;” they use long sentences impossible to understand for the number of adjectives littered throughout. Though they promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, their actions are in fact none of the three. Most telling – equity is not equality. The pursuit of equity leads everyone to the bottom.
I think we are looking at some dark days ahead. I hope I’m wrong; I’ve never had a very good crystal ball. But we are in the midst of an apocalypse, a revealing. The next decade will be decisive for the direction of our country. I always end these missives about the future by encouraging my readers to attend to the things you can influence. Concentrate on the local. The more localized you can become in your affairs, the better. Read. Read Rod Dreher’s Live Not By Lies and The Benedict Option. Read Paul Kingsnorth’s writings on the Machine at his Substack, The Abbey of Misrule. Be informed and know what is coming at us. And make a plan. Better to have a plan and not need it than to need a plan and not have it. And of course, pray without ceasing…
Just because you asked…