Look under "Essays" in the website for the new essay, "Letters from the Heart." FK
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We have just finished a barn-burner evangelical event at, of all places, our staid Catholic church, fronted by Deacon Ralph Poyo. It was both enjoyable and earth-shattering, in the best Elmer Gantry tradition. It has worked to increase our faith, which is the main purpose, but it has also brought to me several insights, some new and one an enhancement of a former idea. One ‘new’ would concern only those invested in Christianity and/or the Catholic Mass, which ties the Jewish Passover to not only the Last Supper (and Communion), but also directly to the Crucifixion and, most interestingly, to the institute of marriage. And while this might seem arcane to some, the issue of marriage does work into the above-mentioned “enhancement” of a former idea. As one might expect from a revivalist, the left-wing attack on traditional marriage and gender identification was declared to be the work of the devil, for if marriage is linked to Christ and redemption, what better institution to obfuscate or destroy? But the Deacon alluded to something more than that, something that led to something else he might not even have intended. It started with his description of our internal ‘black box.’ The black box is the Deacon’s metaphor for our most hidden hurts and sins. It is from these that we learn to hide our true selves, not only from others, but from God. He told his most personal discovery of his own black box: a time when he was eight years old when a (male) relative had some sort of sexual encounter with him. He blamed himself, as we know that kids always do, and from then on, kept self-loathing and distrust in his heart. Opening up that “black box” would be one of his greatest pains and his greatest healing – and his way back to being open with God. I easily found my own black box, which also came from childhood. It was not linked to sex but to physical harm, but that is of no importance here. Rather, through the discovery of the black box and the pain and shame hidden there, I came to understand the fanatical approach of those with off-beat sexual practices to make us all accept their bizarre obsessions. Not just to make their practices legal, understand, but to make us accept them. Their fanaticism, it became clear, comes from the core of their black boxes. Parents, teachers, peers and religions have told them that some of what they strongly desire is morally repugnant, be that homosexual sex or sex with dogs or sex with children. They hate themselves for it, but society has taken such a turn of late that they believe that they have been granted a “get out of jail free” card. This card is played by making themselves the victims, and society the evil tormentor. In this they believe that they can become both the saved and the saviors. Thus their passion: to change their sin, and their damnation, into virtue and salvation. Pretty heady stuff. Who wouldn’t fight hard for that? It is a no-brainer to me that this stunning reversal of age-old morality should be strongly reconsidered. But there is another insight, a brand new one, which I gained from the talks. And it concerns the vantage point of my own professional area, the social sciences. Some fifteen years ago, I happened upon a book by a former nun, Karen Armstrong, titled The Spiral Staircase. I thought it would be a faith-affirming book, but instead, it was about her long journey towards rejecting the Catholic Church. A few years later, I found a large book she had recently written about the Great Religions. Thinking that she, a former nun, might have special insight into them, I checked out the book from the library. It was a bitter disappointment. Back in my graduate days in Michigan, most of the faculty never denigrated religion. Rather, they would say something like, “This study is not on the validity of these beliefs, but rather on their sociological aspects,” or something to that affect. Not so with Ms. Armstrong. The rise of Confucius or Buddha or Christ or Mohammed was due, in her strongly-held opinion, only to socio-historical circumstances. The Jews, for instance, created a phantom messiah to give them hope in the midst of oppression. All that Mosses –on- the- Mountain and miracle stuff was due to archaic, irrational thought and pathetic wish-fulfillment. This is nothing new in modern, unapologetic social sciences, which has taken off the yoke of objective balance to dance freely in the fields of blind certainty. But somewhere during the lectures it occurred to me that this modern approach could be reflective of an understanding of reality that is entirely upside-down. For, instead of socio-cultural history being entirely human-driven, it is just as probable, and in my view more probable, that God has had a hand in our social and historical circumstances. This involvement might be of such caliber that our histories might actually have been manipulated to accommodate his prophets, instead of the other way around. This premise has its complications, particularly concerning free will, but we have examples that help explain that in the Bible. Prophets such as Isaiah would tell the kings or anyone who would listen that doom was coming their way because they had, for instance, fallen into idolatry. The warning was there for people to change, but God knew his people. God also knew his design. He knew that Israel would fall because of those “who change darkness into light, and light into darkness, who change bitter into sweet, and sweet into bitter!” (Isaiah, 5:20). God also knew that “…a child is born to us…They name him…Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:5) This we read from 700-plus BC, well before the birth of Christ. Free will was there, but, in the paradox of creation, God also understood how most humans would (and will) behave, just as we know that certain children will steal from the cookie jar. And, as many believe, he also had a solution for which he was preparing us. The point being, that we are so permeated with materialism that we base our logical premises without forethought on material speculation, something that is called by the philosophers “tautological reasoning.” Thus our conclusions seem to be the only logical answer because of our original assumptions. But most understand that something REALLY BIG created the universe and all its laws and permutations. If that is so, it would seem more logical, and without unfounded presumption, that this really BIG entity or whatever, would be capable of envisioning and directing the course of cultural history as well. And in this, the Entity could then insert the saviors/prophets that would be, are, and will be necessary for whatever design Mr. or Ms. or Mrs. BIG has for us and all of creation. Heady stuff for me, both ideas refined or born from the impassioned preaching of a Catholic deacon revivalist. He has seen many a miracle of far greater scale, he claims, as well as demons and works of evil, and I cannot say that he lies. There truly is so much more in this incomprehensible vastness than what we ordinarily think, and much of that “more” is just a prayer or act of contrition or gift of grace away from us. Sublime revelation is before us, but is blocked by an initial premise – a black box - instilled in all of us that is so wrong that it has made the whole world go wrong for all of history. A world, if we go by the odds, that will be made right again by the same power of the Word that has made everything, and made everything have any meaning at all.
Ah, the winter doldrums! We have been exceptionally warm here these past few weeks, and, aside from peering over our shoulders for flooding waves rushing off the Greenland glaciers, I suppose we are happy about it. Not so the snowmobilers and skiers and those absolute kooks, ice fisherpersons, but for this writer at least, sidelined as I am with a leg injury, it has most certainly been a plus. But winter is still no picnic. The days have been almost all gray when there is any sunlight at all, and it seems an eternity of boredom and depression has descended upon us. That’s why, in His infinite mercy, we have been given Netflix, et al. Saints be praised. But we can watch only so many Tom Cruise action films and Golden Globe winners promoting glitzy post-cultural drivel that will make us want to dye our hair green. So we turn to documentaries, as we did a few days ago. With some of these, and certainly with the one we watched, we sometimes get more than the producers intended. The hook of this particular one is in the name, “The Axe-wielding Hitchhiker,” which brings up creepy images of Freddy Krueger and ski masks and chainsaws. But that is not what we are left with. Rather, by the end we find a sad emotional basket-case of a young man and a media machine that drove him to murder. We begin with a bizarre scene of violence captured on people’s cell phones, of a car pinning a public-works man to the back of his truck. A large middle-aged white man emerges from the car screaming out his hatred of black people while announcing that he is the Christ. He’s a nut, and a racist one at that, and a few woman intervene to try to help the black man who is pinned between the vehicles. As they do so, the crazy man grabs one woman in a wrestling hold and seems to be threatening her life when a young long-haired bearded (white) man appears with a hatchet. He hits the crazy man three times in the head with the hatchet (once, we find, with the sharp end) before the crazy man goes down. Police arrive, along with local TV cameras. We see that no one is dead, while one, the long-haired axe-wielder, is pictured walking away from the scene, a large backpack slung on his shoulders. The TV reporter gets the camera man to move over to the young man, who then grants an interview. Says our hitchhiker, “Yeah, this crazy dude attacks this black dude and then this woman, so I take the hatchet and, like, smash, smash, smash! Got the fucker good,” or something like that. I remember the three-fold “smash.” For visual aid, imagine a really stoned California surfer dude talking and you’ll get the gist: scarf on head, skate board under arm, a man of the road. But more, he was the only one to effectively stand up to a potential killer – and a racist, insane one to boot. The documentary shifts its focus to the reporter. “I knew I had found gold when I interviewed him,” says he proudly, and indeed he had. Within a day, there were hundreds of thousands of hits off his interview, and then millions, going global. People offered new surf boards to the bearded hero, and in no time, the kid had an agent, whether he liked it or not. Soon he was on with Jimmy Kimmel. He played warm-up for bands and was all the rage. This happened around 2013, if anyone can recall. What the media ignored, however, was who this kid really was. They had wanted a likeable hero, a surfer-dude zen wise man who lived for the moment and thought little of his own well-being for the sake of others. Instead, what they got was a messed-up young man from Manitoba who had taken on his surfer-dude homelessness as a persona, a mirage that covered his nervous disorders and painful, apparently loveless (and fatherless) upbringing. He drank in excess; he was stoned all the time. We also find that the crazed racist had first picked up the hitchhiker before the attack, in which time the young man had given him weed that he said was laced with PCP or Special K or some other mind-destroying stuff. Worse still from the promoters’ point of view, he also messed up hotel rooms. None of this was what they had wanted or envisioned at all. And that – the handlers – is what this documentary was really about, whether intended or not. The fame-building had taken place in sunny California, where each agent and reporter that was interviewed had the hardened approach of a shark in a feeding frenzy. To get the fame and the money from this new-found phenomena, they rushed in for the first bite, never looking at what they were feasting on. They claimed in the documentary that, while they of course wanted a piece, they were really doing all this for the hitchhiker. This poor homeless kid will now be rich and famous! What more could he want? Obviously, they were doing it for themselves in an ugly display of greed and raw usury. The kid needed anonymity and poverty, if not intense psychological treatment. His lifestyle was his therapy. With money and fame came substance abuse and fuel for his over-excited trauma-driven nervous system. Finally, all of the attention led him to extend himself into the no-man’s land of murder, and a senseless one at that. He will now sit in prison for the next fifty-plus years. At first I was simply angry at the users of this guy, looking at them as the Hollywood sharks that they are. Then it dawned on me: which of us has NOT been the target of a huckster? Who among us has NOT done things that we wouldn’t have if not pressed to do them by others: by others who would find some entertainment or profit in the doing without sharing the consequences? Soft-brained dolt that I once was, and still am at times, I surely have been swayed, not to murder, but to idiocy that may have had long-term consequences. But apart from shameful personal failures promoted by others, we seldom see that bigger-league users might be swaying vast crowds of people in much the same way and for the same reasons – using collective needs and weaknesses to get the folk to do things that profit the users. We have vintage videos of such things on the History Channel. Hitler stands out as an especially flamboyant example of the user, and the defeated German people as the wounded surfer dudes in SS uniforms, but there are many, many other examples. Did Chairman Mao get down on his knees and dig with the peasants in the Cultural Revolution, or did he use those millions of lives to consolidate his power and his place in history? Did Charlie Manson lead the way in the murders of high-status people, or did he use the fragile and the stoned to bring about his twisted revolution and his fame? We know the answers. We have all been the kid tricked into putting his tongue on the frozen flag pole at one time, so might we not be being used now? Marxists would have it that our hierarchical system protects those in power, and in certain ways that is true. Still, the old-time users exploited a culture and a religion – general Christianity - that they intended to keep in place. What we are seeing now is a purposeful displacement of centuries of tradition for…what? This is not a small thing, not a twisting of familial ties, say, to buttress patriotism, but an actual re-definition of basic institutions. And this is not being done by one or a handful of intellectuals or New Age priests, either, but by the power elite at large, those running the education systems and the media and the election-proof bureaucratic state. So we have to ask –what’s in it for them? We know the answer. Although we are being told that all is for our own good, we know that the changes are only good for certain small groups, and probably not for their good in the long-run either. If not for the good of the many, then, we must conclude that, in the end, it is for the good of the few – and mostly for those few who are promoting the changes. So why are we going along with the program? For one, we are not desperate, not yet. I myself still have to count calories; for two, we would be fighting City Hall, and we all know that you can’t fight City Hall. Most insidious, however, is number three – that the powers that be are using our best traditions to subvert those very traditions. ‘Judge not lest ye be judged; we were all immigrants once; love is love; don’t be a “phobe;” hey, your life ain’t so perfect, so don’t be a hypocrite.’ And, ‘Traditions, particularly religious traditions, are based on fear and patriarchy. Are you one of those?’ It is a devious trap. Like the hitchhiker, we know where we belong, but are sometimes persuaded to think that maybe they are right, that maybe it would be better to be on the other side of the fence. Maybe we are too judgmental, and racist and sexist, and so on. But before we go along with the program, first we must look to those who are wooing us: are they like Christ, willing to lose all and gain nothing to better our lives? Or are they profiting from these changes, either financially or emotionally? Just as important, are these changes improving our lives in general, or have they or will they cause a precipitous demise in order, discipline, and well-being? Not long ago, a group of us went to Medjugorje, the site of Marion apparitions, where we heard again and again from the laity, the priesthood, and even from Mary herself, that those who clung to the spiritual and moral traditions would decline noticeably in the decades to come. Those who remained in the faith, however, would be ‘saved”, however that might be interpreted. But whether we believe in this or not, it is still smart to check out the cost and quality of the goods that are being sold before we buy. Those stripping society of centuries, even millennia, of tradition have no idea where their new ideas will take us, but they do not seem to be concerned. They are getting what they want now, and to hell with the consequences. Our hitchhiker, left to think about his own betrayal for decades to come, would understand. While it is my belief that satanic influence underlies it all, it is not necessary to agree with that spiritual possibility to realize that flimflam artists have taken over the show. Beware the shell game. We must keep what we know to be right in our hearts, regardless of siren calls, sneers and jeers, or the promises of wealth and happiness that would shame the likes of the proverbial Nigerian prince. To play on the famous words of the Who song: Meet the new boss/Worse than the old boss/Let’s not get fooled again. A few weeks ago we finally got around to watching the movie, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” based loosely on the English rock group Queen, but focused primarily on its flamboyant singer, Freddy Mercury. That’s just his stage name, I know, but this essay is not about Freddy nor the movie. For me, the latter was somewhat disappointing, in that it held tightly to the formula theme that is always used for performance stars: improbable rise from obscurity, outrageous fame that leads to outrageous excess, and then some sickness or slump that turns the star towards an inward reflection that makes all right again one way or another. Yup, all there. What interested me most, however, was how Freddy handled the intense pressure that must have come from playing before huge crowds. The crescendo to the movie was the band’s performance at Live Aid before hundreds of thousands in live audience, and billions of others watching on TV. The movie showed him walking out from behind the curtain to greet them all, which he did in a way typical of stars: he opened his arms to them and told them that he loved them. At the end, he blew them kisses and, if I remember right, told them again of his love. That, too, was cliché. But that, this professed love for the crowd, is often really expressed by the stars. Just last month, I learned ‘why’ in a personal way. If we can believe it, word on the street has it that most people fear public speaking more than death. Such we hear, and although I have never seen that specific poll and somewhat doubt it, there is some truth to it. People hate public performance, the worse for the more exposed they are. I have sat with people taking turns saying common prayers that have been said thousands of time, and have seen many forget the words. They at least have the courage to try, but there it is: the fail. And if some fail, so could you. And if you could fail, you probably will sooner or later – if you take to public performance. So you try like hell not to. I am not immune to this fear, and in fact have failed spectacularly in some public performances. The fear is there in me, and were it not for my interest in playing guitar, I would probably never do anything in front of a large audience, or an audience filled with strangers, again. What happens is, if you play a group instrument such as the guitar or piano (or, gasp, the accordion) you are going to be asked to play. And sooner or later, you will not be able to refuse. So it was that I took up with a classical guitar ensemble, to both get better at guitar and learn how to handle public performance better. It should work, I had thought, as years of classroom teaching had finally gotten me comfortable with that form of public performance. However, I was to find that playing in the ensemble resisted comfort or peace. Playing chords for popular songs was one thing; playing individual notes in tandem with several others was another. There, every mistake could be heard and noted; there, everyone, from your fellow players to the audience, could easily detect your mistakes. And with each mistake, lack of confidence could spiral out of control. All was made tougher by a two-year reprieve from performance do to our spectacular reaction to Covid. When we came together again, most of us were raw, almost like newborns in the harsh Darwinian world of the performer. We practiced; we got by with a few puff performances; then we began some really tough stuff that was destined for a higher goal. Finally, the time for that goal arrived: we would play in the big city, the metro of big shoulders, Chicago. Yes, it was to a small audience at a college of music, but still, this would be among people who were accustomed to attending – and comparing – innumerable performances. Surely, some hicks from the Land of Cheese could not measure up. Fortunately, Chicago was far away and the venue was so short – no more than a half-hour of our own individual effort – that a good excuse for not going was ready-made. I told the disapproving master of the ensemble, the former band leader of the local high school himself, that I could not attend. My reasoning was true, and peace fell upon me. Until it didn’t. Doubt began to form: was I just chickening out? Wouldn’t the ensemble be underrepresented beside the bigger group that had invited us? The others were going because they were making a trip of it, staying overnight in hotels with their spouses and shopping for Christmas on the Magic Mile. For me, it would be a two-plus hour drive down, a little bit of playing, and then the same drive back that evening. A huge waste of time and money for a gig that was being done gratis. All true. But still I felt that I was somehow missing out. Another guy in the group had the same situation, and I had left it to him – clever me – saying that I would drive down if he decided to go. He said nothing, and it appeared that I was in the clear, until a few days before the performance. Hey, says he, shifting the burden, I’ll go if you do. Feeling guilty already, I would not go back on my word. We would go. It was on the drive down that something happened – or didn’t happen. I felt a bit of adrenalin psyching up for the event, but no fear, not even the fear I had felt for the minor performances before. Instead, I felt comradery, as if we were all equally in this together. This continued right on down to the college, then right on up to the stage. When it came time to play, it was felt as a fun challenge that was actually enjoyable, accompanied by the knowledge that the audience was getting something out of it – even if only some pointers on what NOT to dol. We came together later in a joint performance, the professionals among them spectacular, and then had a pretty good smorgasbord afterwards as we talked congenially. The food was better than ours up north, too, except for the cheese. Sure, we are not talking about Live Aid and Queen, but now I understand the stars better and how they can handle being stars. The problem with people who avoid like death giving a speech or public performance – and that includes most of us at times – is that we feel that the audience is there only to criticize. In most venues, particularly those that are free, that is simply not true. If we stumble and fail, people feel sorry for us, but will not throw stones. Rather, what the stars know is this: people want to be entertained or informed by someone who has the guts to entertain or inform. Just by willingly standing there before them is a sacrifice that most appreciate. In a way more subtle than obvious, they love you. The stars recognize this by telling the audience that they love them. The crowd loves being loved and so showers the star with more love. As we are comfortable to be ourselves with those we love, the star outshines himself with whatever talent he has. This brings more love. A star is thus not only born but maintained. We could do the same. It happened to me by accident, and with that, can be made to happen again. So it is with ‘A Star is Born.’ Our species has been following stars for eons. We have now passed the height of one star that was born, Christ on Christmas, and the tale of the three wise men who followed that star. Christ came to earth to be king, which is always a sacrifice for the better ones, but this kingdom was to be much more. There would be no applause or love showered upon him in his final performance. He would be stretched out in pure humiliating sacrifice. But instead of condemning the jeering crowds, many of whom did come to criticize him, he begged his Father to forgive them. His last performance was the ultimate sacrifice and projection of love in the most hostile of crowds. Like Freddy Mercury, he was doomed to an early death. And like Freddy in the movie, if not in real life, he was ultimately reborn a star. Big time. Like Elvis, Christ’s fame actually grew after his death, until the greatest empire the West had ever known officially deified him. For the ultimate in sacrifice and the ultimate in love – to give his life for his fellow man – he became the biggest star ever born. His life became the template for the star, although his falling from public grace came from the faults of the public and not his own. A star is made to shine above the earth. Among mortals, the path to becoming a star is propelled by ego, which has to be chastened to make the star a true star. For the biggest star ever, the ego to be chastened was that of the crowd. We were taught that to follow that star in sacrifice and love would make each of us the biggest star of all. We fear rejection, but cannot resist the call. Like the star, we want to be loved and are pulled this way just as Freddy was pulled to the stage. And like Freddy, we must go through our periods of sin and redemption to claim the ultimate prize. Freddy’s star will not come to this Freddy. I don’t have the talent and would be paralyzed before a large crowd. There is fear again, the opposite of love. But the template is there for all of us to see. We will all try to follow it one way or another, and with faith will come to understand that it was never about “me” but about all of us: every one of us both audience and performer, each of us reaching for the same star. Happy New Year! Today, the traditional essay on Christmas, "The Night My Father Shot Santa" under "Essays" in the website (it may be found in my book of essays, "Beneath the Turning Stars," available on Amazon). As I am editing and re-editing my book, "Hurricane River" for publication late Spring, I am only writing two essays a month (beginning and end of the month) to give extra time. On the other hand, some good ideas have come my way in the past week or so, and if I have time, I will add a short essay before Christmas. If not, Merry Christmas, and see you early in the New Year! FK
A certain someone I know told me about an upsetting incident that he recently experienced at the factory where he works. He had gone to another area of the shop to get some information from someone he had known for a while, a man of about 60, and got one heck of a surprise when he approached him. Instead of a “hello” and an answer to his request, the man showed him a picture on his pocket phone. It was, as the man stated proudly, a photo of his male member. “What the hell are you doing?” said this certain person. “Oh,” the older man said innocently,” this is the picture I send around to pick up chicks. Everyone my age does it.” This someone knew better, and just after he told me the story, he said, “I’m going to look up this guy. He must have priors.” After about ten seconds on the phone, he almost jumped in shock. “Holy shit! He’s a class B felon and did ten of twenty years for molesting a minor under age 13!” A little more probing brought him the additional information that the older man had been a school teacher at the grade 2 level. Obviously, he was not a teacher any longer. How could someone hurt such a young child? How could he have no remorse for it, but instead continue his perverse sexual lifestyle? And how could a rational man not know that he would eventually be caught for such crimes and be sent to prison where he would get the worst treatment by his fellow felons than any of the murderers and rapists among them? Back in the olden days of the early 20th century, there were a few philosophies on life that were all the rage in the social sciences. There was Marxism, of course, and eugenicists and Nazis, all of which fell out of favor, at least for a while, after WWII and the cold war era of the 1950’s. But there was another one that lingered on, sometimes having strong surges, which is affecting Western nations in subtle and not-so-subtle ways to this day. Most don’t think of it as a social theory, but it has become increasingly apparent that it is. It is usually referred to as Freudian psychology, and anyone who went to college during the last century is at least a little familiar with it. When I was in graduate school in anthropology in the 1980’s it was no longer in style, as it had already run its last renaissance in the previous decade, but it was still necessary to discuss it. In anthropology, the main purveyor of this theory had been the “Father of American Anthropology,” Franz Boas. Coming to America from Germany in about 1890, he was a contemporary and countryman of Freud, and he spread Freud’s culture-crashing theories among his students. Most famous of his students was Margaret Meade, who he sent to Polynesia with explicit instructions to prove Freud’s theory on sexual repression. Repression, had said Freud, was at the base of our discontent with Western Civilization, and although he knew that all societies had some forms of sexual taboos, he considered them so excessive in the West that they were causing neurosis and personal misery, and even war. Meade went to Polynesia and came back with exactly what Boas wanted, made popular in her wildly successful book, Coming of Age in Samoa. In this, she reported on a hedonist’s dream, where adolescents had sex without restraint and almost without pause. Many took this to mean that we not only could, but should follow their cultural model. Wouldn’t it make us happier? Wouldn’t it cure us of so many neurosis and, by golly, even end war? Freud was more subtle than this, and Meade backpedaled on the simple conclusion people had made, saying that a nice middling degree of repression – exactly how to measure this she left uncertain – is necessary so that people are not forced into sex that they did not want or were not ready for, but the die had certainly been cast. Hugh Heffner went on to use an increasing liberalization to market mammary glands, and ‘Free Love’ began its reign not long after that in the late 1960’s. Along with the Pill and no-fault divorce, the West jumped into a brave new world that promised more pleasure and happiness, a social universe that would give us ‘Love, not War. ‘ Divorce, AIDS, gay marriage, NAMBLA and MAPS, and confused and “transitioning” children have followed, along with rising crime, nihilism, drug addiction and even greater neuroses. Wars have certainly not ceased. What went wrong? To begin with, Freudian psychology, like most theoretical premises, did not function nearly as well in the real world as it did in the library and study. Life is more complex than anything people can imagine, and in hindsight it is easy to see that any basic instinct imprinted into humans cannot be let run wild, as is does in the non-human natural world. As it is, cows eat. Humans dine. We, too, have been given the instinct and need to eat, but we have turned such need into cuisine, and often times, into feasts. If we consume everything we want at the moment, most of us are in for big trouble. Personally, in a world without restraint, I would be hefting around scores more of excess pounds, suffer rotten teeth and diabetes from chocolate candy, a diseased liver from alcohol, cancer of the lungs from smoking assorted herbs, and a whole host of other maladies from things we have made available for excess and vice. Fortunately, we are taught by the wisdom of our elders - and more and more now by our departments of public health - that we have to eat our greens and moderate our appetites concerning everything that we really want. This is because our specie’s ingenuity has taken the basic needs of consumption and expanded the possibilities in so many ways that we have made the world a trap for excessive consumerism. Clearly, our intelligence and creativity have given us much more than what we need to survive - so much more that to let go and ‘just do it’ will lead to an early grave. Almost needless to say, so it is with sex. Long ago in a class on the ancient Middle East I read of the habits of the court of pre-Islamic Persia. For one year or month, the “in thing” might be to have sex with boys dressed as girls, the next, girls dressed as boys, the next, orgies of opposite sexes, then of same sexes, and so on in nearly infinite variety. The satiety only lasts for a while, and if all things are doable, then the participants must begin looking for a more exotic high. We read of Jeffrey Epstein and Orgy Island, with Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew and many others of the jet left unnamed, going along for the ride. They don’t need 13 year old girls - there are whole penthouses of willing 18 year old's available for a price - but they must have the thrill of gliding above societal law. It may be that some perverse acts are compelled in a few people by repression, but far more brutal acts occur from lack of restraint. Tiberius had his pool full of children he called “the little fishes” who performed for his wishes until he grew tired of them and sought the thrill of throwing them off the palace cliff in Capri to watch them split open on the rocks below. It is doubtful that he ever had any sexual restraint imposed on him in his life, and certainly none in adulthood. The point being, as most societies have understood for eons, is that the lack of sexual restraint leads, at the very least, to brutal conflict. In the natural order, human males are often like mountain goats butting heads during rut, except that our rut never ends. You can’t run a village with that going on all the time. Further, somewhere in our moral evolution we happened on the novel idea that along with getting every sexual desire fulfilled comes the suffering of those who often unwillingly serve them. See dead ‘little fishes,’ above. So where is Margaret Meade’s middle ground of restraint? She could not name it, and I suppose no honest social scientist could, but we can get a good idea from the consequences of one level or another endured in a society after a few generations. Ours has very obviously flown over the coup, big time. Man/boy love is coming to a theater and media outlet soon, and then to a legislature near you. “Love is love,” after all, isn’t it? Fortunately, until now at least, societies have not been run by social scientists. They have been ordered primarily by long-held religious beliefs. Some of these only serve the masters in a theocracy, it is true, but others have stood the test of time through many periods of change and history. Catholic Christianity is one of those. Even I, as a practicing Catholic, believe that some of the rules of sexual restraint of the Church might be excessive, but the results of those rules have long proven to have outperform our liberated society. The (social) world was not a happy place in the past, but it held us together; the (social) world is not a happy place now, and it is disintegrating. We must come again to understand that the human capacity for thought has given us free will that has enabled us to live beyond our natural instincts. In scripture, this led to the destabilizing and cursed knowledge of good and evil. So it is that we have to hold back, and we need the wisdom of a divine source to know exactly how and when to do so. Yes, I believe that there must always be some flexibility in the rules, as our complexities reach beyond our understanding, but there must also remain a firm and immovable foundation that guarantees the reproduction of the species, the unity of the family, and respect for the individual. Such, in its own way, is how the natural world is ordered and maintained; and such it is that we must make it for ourselves. The same hand that orders nature must be sought by all of us, with particular note given to those who show themselves to be guided by selfless grace. Only in this way might we steer ourselves back to a more perfect natural human order. It is two weeks later and things have changed, as I knew they would. More so, the good that I thought might have poured into me from Medjugorje seems to be taking its stride. Or so I pray. The wonderful truth is that the delirium from sickness and lack of sleep and general jet lag and dysphoria have subsided and left me back in good ‘ol Wisconsin. It is cold and gray and achingly normal here, true, but it could be way worse. Back to normal: just a few days ago I was dragged along to dine at a Mexican restaurant with my wife’s church women’s group, which is normally not of any interest to long-married men. We know what most women talk about most of the time – not the Packers - and most of the time it leaves us bored out of our gourd. But this is not always the case, and with the beer and tequila flowing at a little faster pace than normal, things actually got interesting. First off, there was the curious insight from our friend’s husband, who was sitting with her, related to the astonishing fact that he had technically died just a few months before as they slept peacefully together at home. She is a nurse, and she woke to notice that her husband was not breathing. At all. She felt his pulse and there was little to nothing there. She then pounded on his chest several times, so hard that three ribs were broken, and finally brought the heart beat back. Then came the EMP’s and a three day coma for the guy. What is interesting is that he admitted to not remembering anything of his life for two weeks! Other facts were missing from his life, too, but otherwise he was talking and thinking with his normal, vivid alacrity. What surprised me about this was, first, that his wife had brought it up, which obviously made him uncomfortable. It must have been the Margaritas. And second, and the most ‘curious’ tidbit of all, was his response to this question: “So, no ‘come to the light’ moments or loss of fear of death for you?” “No,” said he, “there was nothing in that darkness, not a thought. But I have lost all fear of death. Death is a great nothing, so I now have nothing to worry about. It is ultimate peace.” Which made my wife wonder how he understood what ‘nothing’ was if he really was in a state of nothing, but it was the insight about ‘nothingness’ that surprised me because he is Catholic. Catholics live to avoid Hell and achieve Heaven. Eternal life is the final and strongest point of the faith. And yet, he longed for this peaceful nothing, so much so that he had made a pact with his wife, that she would not save him if there were a next time. They were both in firm agreement on that. An interesting thing to ponder, but there was much more to come from the table discussion. It was probably from talking about death, but Medjugorje and the outing of the demon naturally arose, much to everyone’s interest. I mentioned it in the last blog/essay above, and it can be seen on UTube now (Marija’s Apparition, October, at the Castle. In my last essay, I said the vision had taken place inside, but the video shows that it had occurred in an outside courtyard). After the apparition of Our Lady, the screaming of the so-called demon was interminable and quite convincingly not of human origin. In the video we never get to see just from what woman – surely it was a woman by the undertones - it came. It lasted for many minutes, stopped, and then droned on for another few minutes. Which might make us wonder: if demons exist, then what of that dreamless, lifeless nothingness in death described above? If there is something more on the other side of the curtain, why would we think that there is nothing there to fear – or to long for? Back at the table, the talk continued about death, demons, and then finally, the prophecy. This is the most significant claim that has come from the visionaries. As long-time readers of these essays might recall, the visionaries at Medjugorje predict a major re-alignment of the world within their lifetimes, or at least within the last of one of their lifetimes. Such it is that they have set themselves up like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose founder, Charles Russell, claimed that the end of the world as we know it would come with the death of the last soldier from WWI. The last, I believe, has died, but where is that brave new world? For that new world was to be radically different and better, after an apocalypse. So it is for Medjugorje. There is little wiggle room left there, either. The claim is time sensitive, and the change will be huge: many will die, and a “permanent marker” from God will be set at Medjugorje leaving no doubt as to its supernatural origin. The man who had died and been brought back nodded his head when I said that this might bring an end to this most unusual attraction. The youngest visionary is in his early fifties, so the end as we know it should happen within the next 30 years. Most had to agree with us cynics on this – that if the big change did not happen, Medjugorje as a pilgrimage site would be all but finished - but the discussion did not end there. Rather, we speculated on the “end of the world as we know it” scenario. Now, with two exceptions, everyone there was in his or her 60’s or 70’s and we all know what old timers always think of the younger generations’ world: chaotic, immoral, heading into decline and collapse. So it has often been since the days of Plato. Still, it is interesting to note that most there did not gasp at the thought that the Medjugorje prophesy might be a great delusion or hoax. It simply didn’t matter because most agreed that the world was on the brink, regardless. No, not on the brink, but already over the brink, now in freefall. Most were simply waiting for the laws of moral physics, the spiritual double of the formula of acceleration, 9.8 metered per second per second, to kick in, plunging us into some awful depth at a greater and greater speed. This was all said so matter-of-factly, as if talking about the inevitability of winter. Cynic or no, I had to take into consideration the sincerity of the visionaries and length of time they have made their claims (and indeed, the visionary who we stayed with, Mirjana, might be the most genuine, sincere person I have ever met), as well as the seemingly objective view of a world in serious decline. Among us elderly, there was certainly a kind of consensus that something really big is in the works. It gets even more alarming, though, as I have heard much of the same from my son and his 20-something friends. Most think the near-future will be worse than we oldsters believe, because they do not have our faith in God’s purpose and in such prophecies as those from Bosnia-Herzegovina. They do not believe in God’s redeeming virtues, but rather in raw nature’s wrath. Like Druids reborn, God for them does not reign from beyond nature with love, but from within nature with steely, unremittent justice - and woe to us who have sinned with such greed and avarice against our great Mother. Certainly, we might remain skeptical of demons and of apparitions of the Virgin Mary and of prophesies of the End of the World as We Know It. However, many cannot help but perceive from a clear-eyed and rational perspective that other worlds, or other realities, do exist beyond our limited senses and minds, and that our human world cannot continue for long on its current path. Of the latter, I am reminded of the silly song from 1969 (number one on the charts!) “In the Year 2525” by the one-hit wonder duo of Zager and Evans. Let me conflate some lyrics from the song to give the general idea: “In the year 2525 ...ain’t gonna be no husbands or no wives…everything you think do and say/is in the pill that you took that day…” Yeah, it’s looking something like that, isn’t it? In a world where morals are being consumed by science and her discoveries, what is NOT coming next? Which horrors out of so many – genetic manipulation, mind control, biological warfare, nuclear proliferation - will consume the world as we know it first…or last? Clearly we must change our current path, and almost as clearly, there are many different paths to take. As it stands now, if raw nature is in charge, our future will be one of vast destruction, and soon, and then barbarism; and if God is in charge, vast destruction might be just as necessary to change course, except that this course will ultimately change things for the better. One way or the other, though, major change is coming. We can feel it as well as reason it. Maybe the Jehovah’s Witness’s timing is just a little off; perhaps the visionaries of Medjugorje might be a little off as well. Still, in consideration of everything, I do hope their apocalyptic vision, at least one or the other, is true, for we are better off in God’s hands than in nature’s. So I will be praying for greater faith and an end to this era, not because I hate humanity and the world, but because the better part of me cherishes it all. Better the terror of demons and the bitter pill of divine justice than Mother Nature’s pure fury, or worse: the sugar-coated pill from Big Brother that will give us eveything that we are allowed to think, do, or say.
I was so disappointed at the time. Many of us had been seated at the great outdoor church that is central to Medjugorje, ready for Mass, when it was mentioned that there would be an apparition of Mary for the visionary Marija just moments and one mile away. The fortunate ones heard the call and headed out for an experience that would mark their visit to Bosnia-Herzegovina for life. Meanwhile, I sat shivering on a pew as Mass proceeded in Croatian, oblivious to the meaning of the sermon and unknowing of the apparition until an hour later while seated at a pizza restaurant. Then the news trickled in: Marija had been given an unexpected celestial visit at a luxury hotel called The Castle; and all had gone as usual until The Possession. The Possession. I had witnessed one on my last visit to Medjugorje nearly five years earlier when Mirjana, another visionary, had had her special annual visit from Mary on her birthday, March 18. It was outside, and as we waited, even the birds – even the wind – had gone quiet until the screaming began. Without explanation it was clear what was happening. We were witnessing a case of possession and I can tell you that to hear it is no small thing. It sends cold chills right down to the toes. It is like watching a horror movie at the drive-in, and then realizing that it is true, that the Zombies, chain-saw massacres and demons are right outside your door. Beware! The story that night was told to us in text messages and gossip, until finally we were to hear the rest of the details from an actual witness. In a nutshell, what she told us was this: as Marija sat passively for her most lovely visit, a member of the audience suddenly shrieked and then cursed. It did not seem possible that the bizarre voice could come from the victim herself. This alien presence then pled for mercy as it was apparently forced from its poor victim by the sanctity of Mary’s presence. It was said that the voice of the demon soon trailed off as if receding into the distance – this in a closed room- with its final screams being, “Help me! Help me!” Some young people in the audience came to believe, at last, in Hell, which might do them some good. Most who were there quickly reinforced their allegiance to Jesus. Others expressed skepticism: was this just showmanship? Was this Elmer Gantry-style carnival spirituality engineered for profit? The last question will always linger over any peculiar happening at a spiritual event, from healing to talking in tongues, for that is the way we are. It doesn’t matter that we understand nothing of creation or our purpose in life without the aid of our spiritual betters; we will always try to put things back into our boring but manageable box. At heart, we are all deathly afraid of the unknown; and at heart, we are particularly afraid of unknown evil. It does not have to shriek at us from a writhing victim at a religious gathering, either, for it is silently dormant in all of us in the personage of death. Manifestations of the dark side can be no more than reflections of this ultimate evil, placed upon us, Christians say, by our own arrogance and impudence towards God. But certain apparitions of evil still take us by the short hairs. I did not see the flight of the demon that night, but I did struggle with the dark side during much of my stay in this most Catholic of sites in the former Republic of Yugoslavia. To begin with, I had had a presentiment that this visit was going to be difficult for me, even frightening. Understand that nearly every pilgrim in Medjugorje believes that his steps towards this goal are and have been guided by some celestial force or forces, particularly the graces of the Virgin Mother. With this, nothing is given to chance and everything out of the ordinary is considered a sign. So it was that the incident in the garden some two months earlier had taken on significance for me. What happened was this: I was down in our large vegetable garden about 70 yards from the house when thunderclouds suddenly bellowed directly overhead, unleashing both the sound of thunder and the fury of lightning. Without thinking, I sprinted all-out for the house, forgetting my age and my weak Achilles’s tendons. For 20 yards I flew like a twenty-year-old athlete, giving me an unusual youthful thrill until, like an old jalopy, everything suddenly crapped out. I could nearly hear the ball bearings grinding and the muffler dragging. Two days later I was severely lame in my right ankle. Given that it was two months from our trip, I did not give it a second thought. However, by the time of the trip, I was still as lame as ever. In Medjugorje, where rocky hills are everywhere and everyone walks, I was going to have to struggle mile after mile, day after day. That was the small of it. The presentiment also had real internal roots that came from nowhere I could locate, and within the first few days in Bosnia/Herzegovina manifested themselves all too well. I was un-customarily weepy and lethargic. The food seemed bland, the bed hard, the bathroom leaky. The thrill that should have permeated me, as it did others, was often simply lacking. I felt strongly that I was on a purgative pilgrimage, and should have girded myself with a belt of thorns. A horse-hair whip would have fit in, although it seemed unnecessary. Every step was a struggle, and sleep was never enough. Then, three days from the end of our trip, disease struck. On the second night, I coughed so hard that I dry-heaved for nearly a half hour, non-stop. The following day, my stomach muscles were so sore that every cough was an agony. Chills and profuse cold-sweats predominated. Days later came the unbearably long trip back, the sleepless nights, the endless discomfort in tiny plane seats made by closet sadists. Within a few days of our return, we found as a group that about a third of us had been manifestly infected with Covid. Maybe that would explain the dreams, for they were the weirdest and perhaps darkest part of all. On the night of my retching, which felt close to death, I had an ongoing dream that seemed to last for hours. In it, the universe was depicted as a vast organism made of tightly-fitted triangles, like pizza slices. With the removal of one, it was shown to me that everything filled back in as is nothing had happened. In my mind I was made to understand that, while we had free will, our will could never displace the overall will of the ordered universe, both existing perfectly side by side. This also explained how we could have secular time combine perfectly with the endless time of God, all at once. I marveled over the genius of it that night, although I can scarcely say more about it now. Then, on the night of our return, I had a deep 10 hour sleep where, first, I had a long and congenial conversation with Fr Leon, a famous speaker at Medjugorje, followed by a torrent of information of unknown content that poured like Niagara Falls into my unconscious. The power of it was both frightening and exhilarating, and I had the distinct feeling that this power was coming directly from Medjugorje. What exactly it poured into me I did not and still do not understand. It may have been nothing but sickness, all of that dream weirdness. However, the possession of that woman was not, and the sickness and lameness were all very real. And it is this where the basis for the purgative pilgrimage lies. Yes, this world of ours really does end in the grave. To hang on to any shred of it is to court fear, loss, and ultimate tragedy. Sin may be seen as this clinging, and pain and suffering are there to convince us to let go. The aforementioned Father Leon referred jokingly to his time with the “happy-clappy” Christians, and we know what he means: in his youth he wanted to have light and love and joy without the darkness and pain and fear, but that is not how it works. No religion worth its salt, and certainly none that can last 2,000 years, avoids the key issues of suffering or death. In Medjugorje, our Mother points the way to the cross just as much as she touches our heart with her love. It should not surprise us, then, when demons howl and pain and suffering afflict us there – especially there. Still: It is Halloween today, a day that held our distance ancestors in terror of the coming darkness, and our Christian ancestors in hopeful prayer for their dead. Now we joke about death and evil and eat candy and whistle past the graveyard as if such breeziness can make it all go away. That’s OK. We laugh on pilgrimage, too, and they feasted before the day at Cavalry. But we cannot learn without facing the darkness. It is faith and trust in God’s perfect goodness that we must nurture. It is why we pray and travel to holy places and stand before the evening sky to reach as far as we can into the fading light for one last kiss of celestial beauty. It is why we yearn with reverent hope to grasp that divine promise, here, there, and anywhere, before the closing darkness descends upon us in this broken world.
It happened: try as I might to avoid it, politics pushed its angry head under the tent of my conversation once again. No, really, it wasn’t might fault – at least not mostly. It was at a neighborhood croquet match just completed, a bunch of people as old or older than I seated at a picnic table for a final good-bye to summer and the departing snow birds, when she said it: “We should just have a popular vote on everything. That would fix things.” This in reply to someone else’s complaint that everything now was so, let us say, “messed” up. Of course I had to open my big mouth. “That would be even worse than our current leadership. Most of us don’t know that much about what’s happening, from finances to world politics. A lot of it is beyond our understanding (money) or necessarily held secret. We would be the really blind being led by the partially blinded, manipulated like never before.” Oh, the look of evil I got from her! I am not really sure why – maybe it wasn’t politics but my smart-ass approach – but peace had been temporarily shattered. Fortunately, I was able to break the evil air with a few observations about breaking air. As we were a bunch of old folks, we all had out stories, but allow me to return to a more mature point: what I said is true. No one knows the whole of everything. Some of us know a lot about one thing or a few things, but most know less than we think we know about just about everything. This realization brings doubt. Doubt brings darkness and troubled thought. We strive – need - clarity, even fake clarity. Maybe my dismissal of that woman’s clarity was the cause of the hateful look and it really was all my fault. Then again, maybe it was really the weather’s fault, as the dark October skies have filled me with a coffin full of grave and sepulcher thoughts. While the weather may have started this descent into doubt, it was a chance (is anything really just “chance?) detour into our church library that brought it to full force. As the woman who was managing things there has decided that she is now too old or too busy for such things, the library has become a mess of books scattered about with no rhyme or reason. So it was that I shuffled at random through a pile and walked off with one that seemed promising – Notes from the Underground (written of a few essays back) by Fr Cozzens. As an old priest, the author questions the authority of the Church concerning all sorts of things, especially sexual things, about which the Church seems particularly preoccupied. As I read and often nodded in agreement on several things, general doubt about all things increased. Will God really send me to Hell for purposefully missing a Sunday mass? Will I be condemned to eternal torment if I remarry after a divorce without an annulment? True, there is scriptural evidence for much of Church dogma, as well as some practical reasons, but many pronouncements such as those above seem to be more in line with the letter rather than the spirit of the law. This made me think: how much of this or any religion is based on discursive law divested from spiritual law? How many bricks, we might then ask, can we remove from religion in general before the structure crumbles? Another book came to me shortly after, Salt and Light, by Eberhard Arnold, a German author writing from between the World wars. This book was given to me by an old and politically radical Catholic woman several years ago shortly before her unexpected death. I figured I knew what it was about, and, not being a radical myself, shelved it and forgot about it. Suddenly, just after finding that other book by fateful chance, this appeared before me on my bookshelf as if by magic. We never know when the Holy Spirit or the guidance of angels is with us, so of course I had to read it. And it, too, was disturbing, as it, too, led to great doubt concerning the truth of discursive orthodoxy. In summary, it talked of the Sermon on the Mount, that impossible list of things that Jesus said were necessary to live by to enter the Kingdom. We all know what some of these things are: love your enemy just as you love your family, turn the other cheek to be stricken again rather than to strike back, give your tunic as well when asked for a cloak, and so on. Such behavior is impossible for us and seen by most to be metaphors for the perfect love of God. But Arnold has a different idea. Says he: think not of these commandments as laws such as were written for Moses; rather, think of them as pointers, as signs, telling us that we must give ourselves totally to the Spirit. For any human attached to this world, the New Kingdom is beyond them, but for those who have abandoned themselves totally to God, the behavior described in the Beatitudes would come naturally and without thought. That is the only way the new laws of Christ can be fulfilled: not by any force or pressure or rules from the outside, but by the inspiration of God. We cannot demand this, but we can will ourselves to accept this. The rest must be done by Spirit. I have long known this truth and in fact argued with the woman who gave me the book about this very fact. Her extreme activism, I told her, applied human force, which would necessarily produce a profound counter-productive reaction. While this made me feel smarter than her, the book slyly took away my prideful inner certainties. Within a few chapters, I found that I have been hiding behind the written law of our church more than I have thought. And just as with the beginning of this essay, my acceptance of Church doctrine started with politics. The conventional Catholic Church is now a bulwark against the lunacy of woke-ism (you can tell my political affiliation), which has brought me under its overall fold. However, I soon realized that such an alliance can easily close the ‘self’ to that which is beyond the letter of the law. No permanent good can come from the rhetorical thoughts of man. Clearly, no heaven will ever come to earth base on, say, the dogma of Marxism, but heaven cannot come to us through the dogma of the clergy, either. The two are certainly not the same; unlike Marxist philosophy, many religions point the way to heaven. But we cannot take the sign for the real thing. We must open ourselves to the force that inspired our religion, and then allow for the internal change that is necessary for true conversion. Such it is that doubt is essential both in the world of politics and in the world of faith. Still, unless we want to live the tragically stoic life of an existentialist, we must have certainties in our lives, some framework that helps us understand our own significance. For politics, I think we need the test of time to clear our thoughts of the rhetoric, vitriol, and outright lies. Did going to war with X bring long-lasting positive results? Was Y really a stooge of a communist or fascist or enemy country? In hindsight, should I trust this person or party more, or trust this institution or that call to war? So we must make our judgements, hopefully with care and precision. And hopefully not like my paternal grandfather, born 1888, who believed that the government was so corrupt that it faked the moon landing. Then again, maybe he was smarter than I. For religious institutions, I think we have to contemplate where the dogma brings our hearts and souls. Think again of the Sermon on the Mount: does this law or that action promote the vision of Christ? It is far from easy, I know. For instance, should we be accepting of this or that sexual practice if it appears to adversely affect society, the family, and/or the children? Should we live and let live, knowing that such non-judge- mentalism might lead to personal or social destruction or even death? In retrospect, there is no way to fully dispel doubt without a full-faith effort in something, with which we must drop all doubt. Is God love? Is the God of Abraham and Jesus – and His other aspects as shown by the other great religions - real? Is He all-knowing and all- powerful? Somewhere inside we know. If in the clarity of contemplative silence the answer is “yes,” then we must drop our doubts. Then the rest will come. As St Thomas Aquinas said on this deathbed, “All I have written [compared with the eternal presence he was experiencing] is as straw.” So doubt until there is no room left for doubt. This is certainly uncomfortable for those like me, who have caught themselves resting on a pedestal of pride and security. To take the sign – or the propaganda – for the real thing will, without doubt, bring us to a dead end. On the other hand, to deny where these signs are meant to take us will almost certainly bring us to a death as certain as winter.
“There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens….He has made everything appropriate to its time, and has put the timeless into their hearts, without men’s ever discovering, from the beginning to the end, the work which God has done.” (Eccl, 3:1, 11) We went camping in Wyalusing State Park in Wisconsin a week or so ago, and while there, crossed over the Mississippi into Iowa to another park, Effigy Mounds National Monument, where a series of large effigy mounds have been preserved. These, earthen mounds in the shape of animals, particularly bear, were made by American Indians until about 1100 AD. I talked to some young women who worked for the park service to ask them why they think this mound-building culture came to a fairly abrupt halt. They gave me the official line that is written in the literature – that the people advanced into a higher level of agriculture, and so gave up the adulation of animals. This does not make sense, as higher levels of agricultural dependence leads to more surplus, giving more time and human resources to create public works. It also avoids the historical connection between the upper and the lower Mississippi. I do not know why the park service used this poor archaeological theory. Maybe I am simply behind the times. However it might be, we had just come from a diner where strong coffee had been served, and as I had had three cups, I was ready to give a lecture of my own. I told them that the southern reaches of Wisconsin (and northern Iowa on the west side) marked the northern terminus of the Mississippi Mound Culture, which reached its zenith in Cahokia, across the river from St Louis, around 1100 AD – and then collapsed. At the time of the early Spanish explorers in the 1500’s (read Coronado’s account), and until a time just before the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1804, large chiefdoms still existed (smallpox put an end to those), but not as they had before 1100. Further, the Anasazi cliff dwellers of the American Southwest, whose cities were connected by road and trade and ceremony with the Mayan and other population centers to the south, also collapsed around 1100. Of this, archeologists posit the most probable reason: dramatic climate change. How this also affected the well-watered Mississippi valley I do not know, but they were intimately linked together somehow, and both probably came to an end one way or another because of this dramatic change. Great changes in weather at this time were also reflected in the writings of the Vikings, who were forced to leave southern Greenland because of the looming mini-ice age which was to last until about 1800. We have been gradually warming ever since. It seems, then, that climate change may have had a huge impact on American Indian culture, and probably on Europe as well. So it was that I spoke at the visitor’s center, but as the caffeine continued to roar through my nervous system even after I had left, I was led to make other connections concerning climate changes. “You know,” I said to my long-suffering wife, “climate change has had enormous impacts on many civilizations. Did you know that northern Africa, where the sands of the Sahara rule, was savanna up to 3000 BC, with lions and giraffes and elephants and so on? Did you know that the Romans were still hunting elephants from their chariots in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco as late as the time of Christ? Just think of it…” From there, revelations in a coffee cup began to flow over. Yes, think of this: Egypt began its march towards dynastic splendor during that dramatic and fairly quick climate change. Because the lands around the Nile were no longer receiving adequate rain for normal agriculture, irrigation systems had to be put into place. This required coordination of labor and the invention of higher technology and math, which led to greater class distinctions and tech development, and then to deistic leaders who needed the cover of a godly cloak to justify their increasing this-world privileges; which led to the need for great public works in their honor, including the pyramids, and more tech and more hierarchy and more public surplus and on and on in one great game of cultural dominos. After many centuries, the Greeks took from Egypt their math and technology, which was then taken by the Romans and used to dominate the western swath of the Old World for a thousand years. As my thoughts eventually run to the spiritual, more dots connected thusly: Without an advanced Egypt with large stores of grain, Jacob - the grandson of Abraham, the father of the Jews - and his twelve sons would have starved to death during a great famine in the Fertile Crescent. Instead, they were able to take refuge in Egypt, where they prospered and multiplied into the millions over the next 400 years. We all know the rest of the story: the Jews escaped from Egypt, were given their laws from God through Moses, and after 40 years of wandering, they made the walls of Jericho come a-tumblin’ down, and Israel was born. After another 1300 or so years, Jesus was born. Israel was then a part of the Roman Empire, which had built roads and maintained trade throughout much of the Old World. Because of this, the message of Christ was able to spread quickly to the millions upon millions in the ancient civilizations. Christ’s moral and spiritual message, combined with Greek knowledge and logic, later led to the development of Western Civilization, which eventually dominated the entire world, making us the people we are today. And none of this would have happened without the dramatic change in climate around 3000 BC. Paranoid thinking, perhaps, but this whole chain retains a strong element of truth. Yes, other factors were involved, including disease and the fickle fortunes of war, but climate change no doubt had a strong role. Thanks to LIDAR (laser radar), huge civilizations from the past are being discovered in the Amazon and Central America, often pointing to climate change as the major contributing factor to both ‘rise and demise.’ Today’s theories on anthropogenic (man-made) warming notwithstanding, weather is generally out of the hands of Man, part of natural cycles too vast and complex for any peoples’ understanding. One might even say that weather has been exclusively in the hands of God- and, at least until now. So, as Ecclesiastes says, God has put the timeless into Man’s heart, making us long for the designs of the Eternal, but still, unable to discover “…from the beginning to end, the work which God has done.” The connections I made above might sound like the ravings of a man after a three-day jag on crystal meth, but they are not far-fetched, and really only scratch the surface of all that happens that makes what happens possible – and, if we believe at all in intelligent design, what makes it all planned. Overall, we can never see how events happening now will cause those tens or tens of thousands of years in the future. No science, from astrology to particle physics, could ever reveal how the present will form the future. Such work is formed by greater hands. This does not mean that we should lie about helplessly in the face of cosmic forces, but it does show us where our place is in our collective destiny: relatively small and dependent. Flail and bellow as we might, we are like babies in a crib, dependent on powers far greater to relieve our needs. These needs, ultimately, reside in the timelessness that God has placed in our hearts, and it will be within the parameters of the Great Designer that they will be fulfilled. A little screaming does get momma’s attention, though - that we know. But we all have to understand that Rome was not only not built in a day, but was built in part because North Africa became a desert through natural, not human, means. Our agency in the natural world is so small that we might want to better contemplate the admonitions of the great prophets: that what most lies in our hands is our moral behavior and the focus of our intentions. This is where the most important aspect of our will begins and ends. The rest lies dormant in our hearts, waiting for the time beyond time when our longings will be fully revealed and answered. |
about the authorAll right, already, I'll write something: I was born in 1954 and had mystical tendencies for as long as I can remember. In high school, the administrators referred to me as "dream-world Keogh." Did too much unnecessary chemical experimentation in my college years - as disclosed in my book about hitching in the 70's, Dream Weaver (available on Amazon, Kindle, Barnes and Noble and Nook). (Look also for my book of essays, Beneath the Turning Stars, and my novel of suspense, Hurricane River, also at Amazon). Lived with Amazon Indians for a few years, hiked the Sierra Madre's, rode the bus on the Bolivian highway of death, and received a PhD in anthropology for it all in 1995. Have been dad, house fixer, editor and writer since. Fascinating, frustrating, awe-inspiring, puzzling, it has been an honor to serve in life. Archives
May 2024
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