This means that our productive efforts are components of the various evil strategies by which Team Satan is pursuing its goal of subverting, destroying and inverting all that is Good.
When all major organizations and groups (institutions, corporations, nations... bureaucracies of all types) are elements in The System; and when that System is motivated by evil; this situation is inescapable.
In other words; we are all - overall, in a strategic sense (whatever short-term and localized activity we may be doing at this moment, which may be a constrained counter-current, moving towards Good) - working-for the implementation of evil plans, and/or from evil intentions. Whatever our 'job' may be - it is always (more or less) that of an operative in a branch of Team Satan.
This is apparently a difficult situation both psychologically and spiritually; but on reflection it has been quite normal in most times and places throughout history. Many slaves have worked for evil Masters; while citizens of evil Kings have been compelled to prosecute evil policies.
The choice for both slave or citizen was reducible to: Do evil, or else die.
This just-is the human condition for many or most people - and this reality is becoming more evident and less deniable or ignorable as the world degenerates and corrupts; and as evil becomes more inverted in values.
Indeed, what I have described is simply The Christian Condition: i.e. that we are all sinners, and that sin is unavoidable.
It is startling when we realize that sinning includes our personal and active participation in attacking that which is Good: that we ourselves are troops in the army directed against God, and against God's plans and hopes for this world.
Yet all of this was built-into Christianity from its beginnings located in a net-evil Roman Empire and emerging among a net-evil Jewish religion. It is why Jesus emphasized that he came to save sinners (not Men without sin) - all sinners who would repent...
With such repentance meaning that we need to recognize that we are in fact sinners - by our actions, by our efforts, we are (nearly-) all substantially on the wrong side in the spiritual war.
(I say nearly all to account for the existence of genuine saints; some of whom were, I assume, net-Good.)
Since we are 'all' compelled to fight on the wrong side (in part, even when not overall); then the primary question is whether we recognize and acknowledge that fact.
It is a question, mostly, of whether we are honest enough to acknowledge this fact of life; or whether we instead tell-ourselves consoling and self-excusing lies. It is that upon which our salvation hinges.
God knows perfectly well our actual situation - flawed men in a flawed world; and our life is not supposed to be a futile attempt to achieve the impossible (sinlessness) despite the corruption of everything.
Whatever the lessons we (as individuals) are intended to learn in this mortal existence, they are all genuine possibilities - possible for everyone, including the weakest characters in the most extreme of evil circumstances.
Whatever the situation; we can, and need, honestly to recognize and acknowledge our own sins - and make the choice of affiliation in our hearts to the side of God and divine creation.
It is the heart that is decisive for Christians.
We can always choose to follow Jesus Christ both now and after our deaths - nobody and nothing can compel us to yield-up this ultimate Hope.
It is an inescapable decision - Yes or No - and indeed everybody has made that decision already (and can re-make it, in either direction).
In fact; that decision whether or not to follow Jesus Christ is the ultimate; and includes the question of our affiliation to the side of God and The Good. One who has chosen to follow Jesus is already on the right side, the side of right.
Understanding the world in terms of God's plan of creation and Satan's opposition is a complex business - and can seem abstract and dependent on specific information. Luckily for us - we don't need to get that analysis exactly correct; because with Jesus Christ the choice of sides is made simple, concrete, comprehensible. God has made it as easy as possible for us - but in the end each person must and will decide.
This situation, it makes me sometimes wish I were a subsistence homesteader.
ReplyDeleteSubtly, the moment you pay taxes you're supporting Team Satan anyway. Alas, I can say, my upbringing was supported by Advertising. I've tried not to do any work that was directly negative, typically working on things that attempt to reduce suffering..
The best we can hope for at this point is that our work doesn't produce a net negative. Doesn't directly annoy people or increase suffering or add needless work.
You mention Saints, Bruce, how do you think a saint might exist or arise in the modern era ?
@SM - I don't have any particular knowledge of Saints as a whole - those that interest me most are the wonder-working ascetic 'Desert Father' type; of which St Cuthbert is Britain's most notable example.
ReplyDeleteI don't know whether Saints would have much value for Modern Man on the large scale - those Saints that have been in modern situations (e.g St John Maximoivitch of Shanghai and San Francisco - https://orthodoxwiki.org/John_(Maximovitch)_the_Wonderworker) seem to have been all-but ignored.
As usual, all the effective spiritual action nowadays is probably at the individual level; i.e. when an individual Christian is inspired and encouraged by a specific Saint - past or maybe present.
On a more mundane note tying in with the beginning of the post, and allowing for exaggeration, I find it truly depressing and revolting how almost every single job advertised these days seems to consist in some form of "data analysis", ie means of control of the masses for nefarious ends. Most people in the western world are now expected to spend the bulk of their lives gawping into computer screens and becoming little other than slaves.
ReplyDelete@Karl - And, apparently, most people are 'cool with that' - which is the worst aspect of all.
ReplyDeleteAnd just to briefly add, jobs with some air of nobility to them like care workers for the elderly and handicapped are paid minimum wage and with no benefits, which is exactly what one would expect in a satanic and soulless society.
ReplyDeleteThe Left has set up its own similar problem with its faux-sins of global warming, racism, etc. Every "good" (e.g. committing sinful acts) activity on the Leftist side always involves committing some faux-sin of contributing "global warming", or not respecting others sinful activities enough, or infinite micro-transgression loops they make up as they tear apart everything. Anything vaguely resembling normalcy, or even traditionally normal sins have become faux-sins. All the technology produced by evil hetero-white-men, the yachts, private planes, any sexual activity that isn't extremely deviant, food consumption, anything vaguel resembling normalcy, etc. etc.
ReplyDeleteTwo weeks ago I was laid off from a job as a software engineer. Today I accepted a senior software engineering position at a very small but profitable company.
ReplyDeleteI'm very good at moving data around, transforming it, storing it, accessing it, aggregating it, displaying it, etc. I had several opportunities related to that type of work appear. But by then I had come to recognize that being a conscientious data engineer today is like being a conscientious aerospace engineer during a war: one may not wish to exercise one's talents to build systems which allow people to be hurt.
There is no avoiding the system entirely yet. However God's grace often enough acts as a thumb on the scale, insulating us just enough from certain effects of the system's reach.
@Andrew - Well, on the left what you describe is not really a problem - it is the primary objective of leftism: a state of permanent revolution against The Good.
ReplyDelete@Ben - The main thing to avoid is deluding oneself that 'my job' is Good overall, because I find little ways of doing better than the worst. Taking the least evil option (and working hard at it) is not 'being on the side of God/ The Good'.
@Karl - Even there, most people who are carers for a living, now work for large corporations or state bureaucracies that are continually corrupting the job. For one example, normal practice is to try and extend lifespan at almost any cost - including violating individual choice; because so many livelihoods (medicine, nursing, administration) depend on sustaining a growing mass of heavily dependent people.
More seriously, the environment of sick and aged people is extremely secular-left (utilitarian) in its spiritual orientation; which tends to thwart the necessary spiritual task of these conditions.
@Ben - Have you see the Miyazaki film the Wind Rises? It’s beautiful and about that exact problem.
ReplyDelete@A - I've seen that movie, and liked it a lot (best regarded as fictional, because it is so loosely based on fact).
ReplyDelete@Bruce - Agreed. The job doesn't make the man's output Good, but a Man, creating in harmony with God, may find himself in the right job for that season.
ReplyDeleteI told God in prayer that I am open to both joy and sorrow to learn what I must. Two days later I was laid off. Even in that moment, I recognized His hand. It has been as if all of creation conspired with me to create my new role, with some invitations in other directions that were without any light. I encountered forced/false synchronicities and could tell the difference.
@Andrew - I don't know that one but will check it out.