The main thing to grasp about our current situation in the world is that it is essentially unprecedented.
Is that so hard to understand?
OK - there are always similarities to be drawn between any two complex things - but the current situation in unprecedented in so many ways (spiritually especially, but even more obviously the physical-material) - that Now needs to be regarded as essentially different from anything that ever happened at any point in history.
Of course, this entails that we cannot predict what will happen - except in broad outline and without a clear timescale - but surely that is obvious anyway?
What we ought to be doing as Christians is to try (it's difficult!) to detach from large-scale and abstract speculation (which is the level at which evil is operating) - which implicitly encourages us as individuals to fit-in with some worldly-grouping...
And instead focus on the personal, spiritual, experiential perspective.
Which is also, potentially, the perspective of hope.
Genie has left a comment:
ReplyDelete"Thank you for this. My husband told me the same thing, but it makes more sense when you say it. Hah!
"I have been buffeted at work, first by the Fauci Flu rally, now by Uk/Ru hysteria. I describe it as being in the middle of a boat, and the rest of the sailors rushing together from one side of the deck to the other. The boat shifts and I start sliding with them.
"I retire in six weeks. Two years before social security but WORTH IT. So I will mentally choose to sit in a comfy chair under a tree and read important books. Focus on my surroundings, G_d, my loved ones and me. Much better. By the by, I love reading you each morning before going to work. You help with these last few savage weeks."
They can't believe it. The atheist, the secularist, the materialist, for them there's no beginning, there's no ending, no telos, it is all just a wheel. Humanity rises and falls by its revolutions stretching out for eternity.
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