Last week I wrote a bit of a downer of a post. A friend said it was "too depressing for words," and that is how pretty much everyone of my acquaintance who cares about a Biblical world view and the future of the American republic feels. I'm convinced that post-election, we really are on a slow but inevitable slide toward barbarism. I hope it won't come in my lifetime or my children's, but America does seem to have abandoned her position as a shining city on a hill and is a little more like a welfare state in a moral vacuum. I feel most intensely for my friends in the pro-life movement, who have worked passionately for nearly 40 years and now see even their religious institutions forced to support the culture of death.
I'm not going to waste any time on people who refuse to work within the system we have but still complain that Mitt Romney is a "RINO" and could never have been elected. Their lack of a vote made no difference; the barbarians are already within the gates anyway. (And no, this is not a reference to the Hispanic vote, which I believe will ultimately go to the Republicans). But as the above cartoon illustrates, barbarians lack a certain sophistication of thought. It's awfully easy to outthink them, and for those of us who enjoy such things, it is fun to watch them fail. It would be more enjoyable if it did not also involve the fall of our own civilization, though.
And, truth be told, it has been a week of many domestic eruptions and tomorrow is the biggest cooking day of the year and I have hearth fires to tend. So I have just a few random quotes to share today.
"Accustom yourself to look first to the dreadful consequences of failure; then fix your eye on the glorious prize which is before you; and when your strength begins to fail, and your spirits are well nigh exhausted, let the animating view rekindle your resolution, and call forth in renewed vigor the fainting energies of your soul."
-William Wilberforce-
(This has been making the rounds of my pro-life friends on Facebook. One of the things that attracted me to Steve way back when was that he lent me a biography of Wilberforce to read. And the slave trade was, ultimately, abolished, as I pray abortion will be someday.)
The second quote is from Redeemed Reader. They are having a Hobbit read-along; this quote is from J.R.R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth by Bradley Birzer.
When one of the riders asks Aragorn how to discern right and wrong in complicated times, Aragorn responds: ‘As he has ever judged,’ for ‘good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.”
That one made me think of the Teleprompter-dependent President as similar to the Voice of Saruman, and that brought on a fit of giggles. That will have to do for today. I'm off for what I hope will be a quiet evening of knitting and tomorrow, a quiet day of baking and cleaning.
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