When I think about this country, since Memorial day was just two days ago. I am caught between wanting to live my life and what I have to recognize as the changed stance my government has taken towards my religion, causing me to take seriously the call of Christ to lose one's life for His sake. The latter I must confess is not so much a noble aspiration on my part because, well, there is so little I have in common with this new world. How can I go on living in a country, a world for that matter, that every day is attempting to deteriorate my religion and values? We often speak of freedom here in the United States and so coming across verse six in Psalms 87 'free among the dead' really struck a cord with me. Yes, one can be free but as the author of that Psalm reveals one can be free in a country, a world or in general a place that has no hope, no life or prospects of a future. When we speak of freedom in this country we seldom speak of where that freedom will be lived out. To that end, what is the sense of being free amongst the dead?
America does have a culture of death. We watch autopsies on television as a form of entertainment. The teenagers not only pepper their conversation with cursing the vulgarity has become for them a language of their own. There is currently a bill in Congress that will deny Catholic organizations the right to serve as adoption agencies because the Catholics will not place children in the homes of gay couples. When I think of some of the places that I have worked or hoped to work serving in some menial capacity, I can recall the people there that hated me because I was not friendly towards them. I suffer from some malignant counter phobic tendency to ward off anyone who smiles at me too much or too generously. Since I was a child I have been made sadden by a smile. It has always registered in me a lack of respect for my person, a precursor to deceit. So certainly in some instances the fault in my disenfranchisement can be squarely leveled on my bilious personality, but at other times there was just this uprising of emotions that veered from friendliness towards me to hate. It is, make no mistake about it, how others feel about you, whether they are willing to spend forty hours or more around you in the course of a week, day in and day out, that will determine whether or not you get the job. Eventually I find that people hate me so I sustain on the very margins of society. However, many themselves come from a background of ignominy and darkness and it seems that what they don't want is the light to shine on their darkness, I don't mean their upbringing per se, I mean the shroud of unconsciousness in which they wallow away the carrousel of their lives. So that when any conscious thought is elucidated upon this, their life, they become really upset and and reflexively I am ejected. At least that is how I perceive these situations. For instance when you tell them that you are Catholic and don't respect homosexuality as a valid stage of psychological health, you will be seen as an obstacle to the now well established political correctness in this country. It is tantamount to saying that you are a pro-Confederate army, pro-slavery Klan member and view African-Americans as an inferior people. Although that being said, for the most part we have completely over looked the fact that we have in a pseudo tongue-n-cheek manner given place to the very establishment of the political concept of being politically correct in the first place and nonchalantly entrenched this brazenly Un-American concept into our lives. We are in a dream where we say to our selves what has happened in the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany could never happen here in the United States while all the while our values of freedom are transformed under our nose and it is precisely because we don't want to slow down and interrupt our lives or at any cost sacrifice our lives for freedom which allows for us to be psychologically and mentally cloned on a daily basis. Who said America and Great Britain won the Cold War, Margret Thatcher? One expatriate from a communist country described what it was like to live under that form of government. He recounted the lies that were told on a daily basis to the citizens. He said they weren't just small lies, they were lies no one could seriously be expected to believe. We too live under lies like this today. The lies that we ingest on a daily basis now here in America account for one of the main reasons people in their twenties get their news from Comedy Central. We are told that homosexuality is perfectly psychologically healthy, that although it is patently impossible to develop any sense of self esteem when one is being consistently sodomized, no harm whatsoever will come of it. The lack of the opportunity for high self esteem would explain the need for a gay pride parade rather than a 'high self esteem' parade. What's more we are expected to believe that these people share no similarities at all with other psychologically disordered Americans such as the depressed, manic-depressives, bulimics or those suffering from anorexia nervosa. Not to mention personality disorders from which of course I suffer. Certainly, I bring my own character faults to the work place, For instance, I find, I can no longer pretend to be friendly to people, or even pretend that I want to be around them or enjoy their company. That to me is the funny part, my complete inability to deceive other people anymore about how I really feel about the lifestyle I lead here in this city and in this country. I hate pretending that I want to be a 'power broker' or a 'go getter'. I can't pretend anymore that I find arrogance and pride desirable traits. I can't pretend that I envy my superiors. I can't even stand being around most people, I live on the border between narcissism and misanthropy. Yet, since narcissism (along with homosexuality it's (no pun intended) kissing cousin) is no longer classified as a personality disorder I am simply a charmless misanthrope (and perhaps masochist). Yet, my case isn't terminal, I find a few hours in the gym tends to clear up these anti-social symptoms readily enough. Which reminds me, I have to start a new membership at the local gym but I find I am not so willing to accommodate their terms in which they insist on having direct access to my revenue stream through my bank account. I would have to close the account if there were any unsettled disagreements. I feel that is a little to close for comfort or is that simply more misanthropy? We seem to be coalescing economically but diverging politically. We can all get along but only if we abandon our religions and the definitions of what some of us believe constitutes a family.
So then, shamefully as almost by default, a Christian has to look again at Christ's terms. Lose one's life for His sake. Losing ones life is not as challenging as is the boredom that ensues. I have found I have an embarrassing addiction to whirling about. I will even take subway rides just to supplement that feeling of commute. Ah! The joy of never having enough time, of not being still. Yet, Christ has made those two things clear. That man must lose his life to find it and that to be rich in this world is unfavorable to the Christen, ergo Protestantism. If one forgoes Christ, he is free to participate in this New World Order, he is free to pursue happiness amongst the other dead. It only makes sense that one would have to choose between this world and the next. It only makes sense that it would have to be an act of the free will, an act of volition, rather than a simple stumbling into the next world unconsciously. As a Catholic I have witnessed Americans devolve into a people who have submitted to materialism nearly in it's entirety who have turned to a Soviet styled government where they are told what will be acceptable by their government. They will be told by their government as they have now in NYC parks, that there is no smoking in the parks and thus a government which once distributed cigarettes to it's G.I.'s now tax the same exorbitantly so that many can no longer afford them and commit these illegal laws into action under the auspices of keeping Americans healthy or rather to make it abundantly clear that they are completely unwilling to cover the smokers hospital bill when they get ill. Yet, at the same time the government endorses same sex marriage which serves to decimate the idea of the family in it's entirety. Are these things done for the common good? Or are they precursors to having healthier drones? Is it good government to use social engineering in order to keep America's population physically healthy but not psychologically healthy? Of course the greater reality being that few if any of us are even living in a conventional family setting any more at all. I think that when I come to terms with my government as a Christian and find that I am against what the government wants to accomplish and against the culture of the country I have grown up in I owe it to myself to ask myself how do I live, how do I work here and do I really want to? I, at one in the same time decry the devaluation of the American family but myself have declined to start one. Do I really want to strengthen the arm of a government I do not trust and do not agree with? The question of what am I doing with my life challenges my conscience much more vigorously than the question of what is it I do. I am living much in the way that the government would prefer the majority would live, quietly, meagerly and celibate. Yet I align myself with Christ who preached that the poor are valuable and that some make themselves eunuchs for heaven(Matt 19:12)(1st Corinthians 7:8). It would seem that the government wants something very similar except that they want disciples of materialism. I have worked as a sub-contractor in commercial bank where they have had their employees come in on a Sunday in order to be prepared for Monday. Now certainly as a Catholic I would balk at this.
Although to be honest for all my aspirations to saintliness my situation is no different for me amongst the people of even my own local parish. I have left two of the main organizations I was a part of, the role of catechist and that of choir singer. (There was much to much blasphemy permitted amongst the catechumens and too many homosexuals in the choir). I have also failed the behavior test at Cablevision taken in order to get employment there and so I would have to admit there is something wrong with my behaviour or that I have a character flaw. I am a quitter. However at the same time I see people who curse and call me a 'punk' at every given oppurtunity and they are confident that they are in good standing with their community, they are certain that their waywardness is the status quo, while my relgion forbids calumny and verbal detraction of any kind. (Matthew 12:36)
I have recently wondered what people think when they ponder the tsunami that hit Japan. The Japanese were praised for responding in such an orderly fashion to their government. Yet, few will speak of the fact that the Japense were cloning mice seamen in effort to make clone mice and soon would move on to make human clones in this fashion. I wondered what they thought of the hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans, the floods in France, the floods in Missouri, the fires across California, the earth quakes in China that have shattered lives. I wonder why none of these disasters have worried them here in New York, why they seemingly don't perceive a connection between moral behavior and the fear of God? I wonder why they seem to believe that the party of life will just keep on going? Perhaps it is because they aren't 'punks', perhaps it is because they are confident in their flesh. Yet, God has cursed the man who trusts in his flesh (Jeremiah 17:5). Perhaps they have not read this or believe as I do.
So yes, Americans have freedom but they are free amongst the dead. Free to bury their own dead(Matt 8:22) as dead men themselves and free to follow this government into eternal damnation. It is the first time in my life in which the government has demonstrated so striking a characteristic as to be so stridently and overtly against religion as a whole. Where the government of the people, for the people, by the people have found that it is in their better interest to keep their jobs even if it means losing their country, and for that matter, their souls.
America does have a culture of death. We watch autopsies on television as a form of entertainment. The teenagers not only pepper their conversation with cursing the vulgarity has become for them a language of their own. There is currently a bill in Congress that will deny Catholic organizations the right to serve as adoption agencies because the Catholics will not place children in the homes of gay couples. When I think of some of the places that I have worked or hoped to work serving in some menial capacity, I can recall the people there that hated me because I was not friendly towards them. I suffer from some malignant counter phobic tendency to ward off anyone who smiles at me too much or too generously. Since I was a child I have been made sadden by a smile. It has always registered in me a lack of respect for my person, a precursor to deceit. So certainly in some instances the fault in my disenfranchisement can be squarely leveled on my bilious personality, but at other times there was just this uprising of emotions that veered from friendliness towards me to hate. It is, make no mistake about it, how others feel about you, whether they are willing to spend forty hours or more around you in the course of a week, day in and day out, that will determine whether or not you get the job. Eventually I find that people hate me so I sustain on the very margins of society. However, many themselves come from a background of ignominy and darkness and it seems that what they don't want is the light to shine on their darkness, I don't mean their upbringing per se, I mean the shroud of unconsciousness in which they wallow away the carrousel of their lives. So that when any conscious thought is elucidated upon this, their life, they become really upset and and reflexively I am ejected. At least that is how I perceive these situations. For instance when you tell them that you are Catholic and don't respect homosexuality as a valid stage of psychological health, you will be seen as an obstacle to the now well established political correctness in this country. It is tantamount to saying that you are a pro-Confederate army, pro-slavery Klan member and view African-Americans as an inferior people. Although that being said, for the most part we have completely over looked the fact that we have in a pseudo tongue-n-cheek manner given place to the very establishment of the political concept of being politically correct in the first place and nonchalantly entrenched this brazenly Un-American concept into our lives. We are in a dream where we say to our selves what has happened in the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany could never happen here in the United States while all the while our values of freedom are transformed under our nose and it is precisely because we don't want to slow down and interrupt our lives or at any cost sacrifice our lives for freedom which allows for us to be psychologically and mentally cloned on a daily basis. Who said America and Great Britain won the Cold War, Margret Thatcher? One expatriate from a communist country described what it was like to live under that form of government. He recounted the lies that were told on a daily basis to the citizens. He said they weren't just small lies, they were lies no one could seriously be expected to believe. We too live under lies like this today. The lies that we ingest on a daily basis now here in America account for one of the main reasons people in their twenties get their news from Comedy Central. We are told that homosexuality is perfectly psychologically healthy, that although it is patently impossible to develop any sense of self esteem when one is being consistently sodomized, no harm whatsoever will come of it. The lack of the opportunity for high self esteem would explain the need for a gay pride parade rather than a 'high self esteem' parade. What's more we are expected to believe that these people share no similarities at all with other psychologically disordered Americans such as the depressed, manic-depressives, bulimics or those suffering from anorexia nervosa. Not to mention personality disorders from which of course I suffer. Certainly, I bring my own character faults to the work place, For instance, I find, I can no longer pretend to be friendly to people, or even pretend that I want to be around them or enjoy their company. That to me is the funny part, my complete inability to deceive other people anymore about how I really feel about the lifestyle I lead here in this city and in this country. I hate pretending that I want to be a 'power broker' or a 'go getter'. I can't pretend anymore that I find arrogance and pride desirable traits. I can't pretend that I envy my superiors. I can't even stand being around most people, I live on the border between narcissism and misanthropy. Yet, since narcissism (along with homosexuality it's (no pun intended) kissing cousin) is no longer classified as a personality disorder I am simply a charmless misanthrope (and perhaps masochist). Yet, my case isn't terminal, I find a few hours in the gym tends to clear up these anti-social symptoms readily enough. Which reminds me, I have to start a new membership at the local gym but I find I am not so willing to accommodate their terms in which they insist on having direct access to my revenue stream through my bank account. I would have to close the account if there were any unsettled disagreements. I feel that is a little to close for comfort or is that simply more misanthropy? We seem to be coalescing economically but diverging politically. We can all get along but only if we abandon our religions and the definitions of what some of us believe constitutes a family.
So then, shamefully as almost by default, a Christian has to look again at Christ's terms. Lose one's life for His sake. Losing ones life is not as challenging as is the boredom that ensues. I have found I have an embarrassing addiction to whirling about. I will even take subway rides just to supplement that feeling of commute. Ah! The joy of never having enough time, of not being still. Yet, Christ has made those two things clear. That man must lose his life to find it and that to be rich in this world is unfavorable to the Christen, ergo Protestantism. If one forgoes Christ, he is free to participate in this New World Order, he is free to pursue happiness amongst the other dead. It only makes sense that one would have to choose between this world and the next. It only makes sense that it would have to be an act of the free will, an act of volition, rather than a simple stumbling into the next world unconsciously. As a Catholic I have witnessed Americans devolve into a people who have submitted to materialism nearly in it's entirety who have turned to a Soviet styled government where they are told what will be acceptable by their government. They will be told by their government as they have now in NYC parks, that there is no smoking in the parks and thus a government which once distributed cigarettes to it's G.I.'s now tax the same exorbitantly so that many can no longer afford them and commit these illegal laws into action under the auspices of keeping Americans healthy or rather to make it abundantly clear that they are completely unwilling to cover the smokers hospital bill when they get ill. Yet, at the same time the government endorses same sex marriage which serves to decimate the idea of the family in it's entirety. Are these things done for the common good? Or are they precursors to having healthier drones? Is it good government to use social engineering in order to keep America's population physically healthy but not psychologically healthy? Of course the greater reality being that few if any of us are even living in a conventional family setting any more at all. I think that when I come to terms with my government as a Christian and find that I am against what the government wants to accomplish and against the culture of the country I have grown up in I owe it to myself to ask myself how do I live, how do I work here and do I really want to? I, at one in the same time decry the devaluation of the American family but myself have declined to start one. Do I really want to strengthen the arm of a government I do not trust and do not agree with? The question of what am I doing with my life challenges my conscience much more vigorously than the question of what is it I do. I am living much in the way that the government would prefer the majority would live, quietly, meagerly and celibate. Yet I align myself with Christ who preached that the poor are valuable and that some make themselves eunuchs for heaven(Matt 19:12)(1st Corinthians 7:8). It would seem that the government wants something very similar except that they want disciples of materialism. I have worked as a sub-contractor in commercial bank where they have had their employees come in on a Sunday in order to be prepared for Monday. Now certainly as a Catholic I would balk at this.
Although to be honest for all my aspirations to saintliness my situation is no different for me amongst the people of even my own local parish. I have left two of the main organizations I was a part of, the role of catechist and that of choir singer. (There was much to much blasphemy permitted amongst the catechumens and too many homosexuals in the choir). I have also failed the behavior test at Cablevision taken in order to get employment there and so I would have to admit there is something wrong with my behaviour or that I have a character flaw. I am a quitter. However at the same time I see people who curse and call me a 'punk' at every given oppurtunity and they are confident that they are in good standing with their community, they are certain that their waywardness is the status quo, while my relgion forbids calumny and verbal detraction of any kind. (Matthew 12:36)
I have recently wondered what people think when they ponder the tsunami that hit Japan. The Japanese were praised for responding in such an orderly fashion to their government. Yet, few will speak of the fact that the Japense were cloning mice seamen in effort to make clone mice and soon would move on to make human clones in this fashion. I wondered what they thought of the hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans, the floods in France, the floods in Missouri, the fires across California, the earth quakes in China that have shattered lives. I wonder why none of these disasters have worried them here in New York, why they seemingly don't perceive a connection between moral behavior and the fear of God? I wonder why they seem to believe that the party of life will just keep on going? Perhaps it is because they aren't 'punks', perhaps it is because they are confident in their flesh. Yet, God has cursed the man who trusts in his flesh (Jeremiah 17:5). Perhaps they have not read this or believe as I do.
So yes, Americans have freedom but they are free amongst the dead. Free to bury their own dead(Matt 8:22) as dead men themselves and free to follow this government into eternal damnation. It is the first time in my life in which the government has demonstrated so striking a characteristic as to be so stridently and overtly against religion as a whole. Where the government of the people, for the people, by the people have found that it is in their better interest to keep their jobs even if it means losing their country, and for that matter, their souls.
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