The world used to hope that the USA was still a defender of Goodness, but with MAGA-America’s betrayal it is hard to keep the Light shining. Not that we didn’t see the copycat of Putin coming, but when we see such military might put to lawlessness, our heartsickness tempts us to quit trying to represent Truth and Goodness.
Every attempt that we as Americans have made to be good, humane, and beautiful, seems to have been thrown down as lies. The fact that a large segment of the Church which claimed to follow the Prince of Peace became followers of MAGA is a particularly poignant stab to our hearts. What? It wasn’t enough to betray the world? You had to betray God?
Who can we trust anymore? What is the use of trying to promote righteousness? Many Americans have given their lives in the service of the high ideals their country used to be about. Are all such efforts for Good now wasted?
“… the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1:5)
It does happen but is something of a miracle that some do not choose greed. Evolution is the miracle of the universe’s on-going development, not stopping at the stage where humans wallow in gluttony, material hoarding, and violently stealing the resources of others. The appalling behavior we are witnessing against America’s southern neighbors is stuck in primitive animality.
In the face of such blatant degradation, it is hard to keep manifesting on-going progress beyond evil. The advancement of Good has always been slow and agonizing, as witnessed by its countless martyrs. Americans used to wonder how goodness could be alive in the Soviet Union, but countless opponents inside the USSR died anonymous deaths for insisting there was better. Now people wonder the same about Americans where a modern gestapo is disappearing people.
History is longer than a lifetime and the growth of the universe moves on past the limits of humanity’s bullies.
Humanity became capable of intentional evolution when we started thinking. Thinking empowered animal instinct to do more than thrive. We have been experiencing millennia of learning how to apply humanity’s intelligence to better goals than physical indulgence. Most humans sense a Reality higher than materialism, but there are still many in power who idolize the animality of the past and try to impose it with violent, destructive force. What of the rest of us?
We will maintain our view to the future when “swords are beat into plowshares” and we will “study war no more.” (Isaiah 2:4, Micah 4:3) We will “live like children of light.” (Ephesians 5:8)
The fact that these are ancient sayings shows how long it is taking for humanity to rise above the delusion MAGA is trying to perpetuate.
Winners and Losers
Those who care only about what they can get in their little lifetime sneer at the “losers” who sense the Greater Reality to which we are connected, who live in the ways yet to become the norm. The “losers” have made the evolutionary choice to shine as lights in the darkness exposing the consequences of instant gratification, over-consumption, slavery to the profit motive, lawlessness, and violence to fellow creatures. We keep faith alive and multiplying by insistently demonstrating the alternative.
Evolution has always happened on the minute scale as the exception. While the norm continues to dominate the common ground, the exception navigates around it. The exception may or may not try to change the bullies, but its power lies in longevity and in its perspective of the future when the current norm will be gone. The difference of the exception is multiplied by demonstrating behavior better than the low bar of the norm. All while the norm tries to delete the exceptions.
Being the Light
“Put your sword back into its place! For all who take up the sword will die by the sword.” – Jesus (Matthew 26:52)
Jesus said this to those who would defend him against others coming to crucify him. But the light cannot be overcome by darkness. He told those who chose his alternative life, “You are the light of the world.” (Matthew 5:14) The Good is not quenched by crucifixion.
People of the light are multiplying, regardless of the violent opposition temporarily dominating. Warmongering, abusive materialists cannot stamp out the rising better nature of love and spiritual life.
This is a reminder that living the new nature is not futile. We hold the long view. We shine as beacons on the path leading beyond the place we have outgrown toward the fulfillment of Creation. This moment of humanity’s development is a minute increment in the making of our destiny.
This is change of a magnitude greater than the norms now asserting power, wealth and war.
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