The ground must be prepared before a (hoped for) religious leader can emerge - the mass of black birds that is modern man must be seeking a perch before they can find and roost-upon that bare winter tree which is modern Christianity: such that it suddenly appears to be standing in full leaf!
The main work to be done is in the hearts of Men - many, many Men - a faith grounded in prayer and personal reflection or meditation: an opening of the heart to God.
That opening is an acknowledgement God is real, a personage, loves us as individuals, and will communicate by any and all means possible.
(Recognising that we ourselves are the main barrier to God's communications - blocking and distorting in multiple ways.)
For a Great Awakening we must trust in God's power to find a path into each and every heart that is opened to Him; and nothing else is necessary to begin the process.
I always thought you Englishmen lived in quaint little country cottages. Like something out of a Beatrix Potter children’s story.
ReplyDeleteThe houses here are all made of ugly concrete block and stucco.
@BB - I presume this comment was intended for the previous post!
ReplyDeleteMy point was that even the stone built and quaint country cottages, as well as the red brick 1930s houses such as mine, have surprisingly large amount of joinery in them.
Do you think the time for the "Old Testament" (or even BoM pattern, for that matter) of God permitting the sinful people to lead themselves to destruction while preserving the righteous is past?
ReplyDeleteOur situation is, of course, unique - but the makings of similar things have happened in the past. If your mutation meltdown theory holds true it might be that a new righteous people would be built from smaller faithful communities afterwards.
@Nathaniel - I would not equate mutational meltdown with sin. But as for your first question.. I have not thought much about this, but in general I feel that our current era (post industrial revolution) is unqiue, and there are only very limited parallels with past situations. Which makes prediction even less secure than usual.
ReplyDeleteAt the times of the Old Testament, there was not much in the way of hope for life beyind death whether for the Hebrews, or for anybody else - but Christians have hope of everlasting life. So what happens in mortal life takes on (or should take on) a different perspective from that in the New Testament.
How do you go about persuading humanity that it needs God's perch when of all God's avians, it most resembles Ted Hughes' Crow?
ReplyDeleteCrow and the Birds
When the eagle soared clear through a dawn distilling of emerald
When the curlew trawled in seadusk through a chime of wineglasses
When the swallow swooped through a woman's song in a cavern
And the swift flicked through the breath of a violet
When the owl sailed clear of tomorrow's conscience
And the sparrow preened himself of yesterday's promise
And the heron laboured clear of the Bessemer upglare
And the bluetit zipped clear of lace panties
And the woodpecker drummed clear of the rotovator and the rose-farm
And the peewit tumbled clear of the laundromat
While the bullfinch plumped in the apple bud
And the goldfinch bulbed in the sun
And the wryneck crooked in the moon
And the dipper peered from the dewball
Crow spraddled head-down in the beach-garbage, guzzling a dropped ice-cream.
@Geraint - Yes, and crows are among the most intelligent of birds, too.
ReplyDeleteHughes was not, of course, a Christian - so his existential analysis is restricted to mortal significance; and the crow poems, have, in my estimation, a ring of falsity, a pretentiousness about them - a striving to make a impression.
When Hughes became the Poet Laureate somebody wrote a waspish parody along the lines of:
Beak tears flesh, blood spatters,
Crow consumes the entrails
Belches fetid swam filth...
God Save the Queen.