Friday, December 14, 2012

Darkest Evil

All my life my favorite season has been fall.  Because of the new coolness in the air (I grew up in upstate New York in a small town, much like Newtown, Ct.), because school was starting again and that meant new uniforms, new socks, underwear, shoes, books, pens, paper.......everything brand spanking new.  It was almost like being born again, getting a new start.  If I didn't like the way the last year of school panned out, here came a new one with all my familiar friends.  I could start off new and do everything right.
My favorite memories are of my pre-pubescent childhood.  Everything seemed so safe, so predictable, so solid.  And even though the world was a dangerous place, societal norms and standards were Judeo-Christian and made sure that Total Chaos never broke loose on a regular basis in any given place.  That is no more.
What breaks my heart more than anything else about the shooting at Sandy Hook School today is that it took the lives of small children.  Innocent, living in a small town, waiting for Christmas and most probably still believing in Santa.  Shattered.  That's the only word I can think of for all the children that survived.  School, childhood, beautiful innocence will never be the same for them again.  And because I remember how wonderful it was to be that age and safe, secure, red-cheeked and buried in winter gear playing outside in the snow waiting for the supper call,  it brings me deep sorrow, more than any public or school shooting has ever done.
I guess the gauge of evil is Nazi Germany.  Because the Germanic people had one of the highest civilizations on the earth along with Britain and the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries, the horror to which they fell and the diabolocal detail they gave to their murder is more shocking.   If the people leave their Judeo-Christian heritage and beliefs behind, then evil steps into the vacuum.  Germany was also the home of the progressive Christian movement and theologians who began to teach that Jesus was just a great man and the Bible a collection of myths.  This "scholarship" began in the mid 1800's in Germany and, by the time of the 1920's, after a lost war, the utter destructive power of which had never been seen before, and a worldwide depression, evil surely walked right in the door in the form of Hitler and his henchmen.   And then the unthinkable began to occur slowly but surely.  Starting with harrassment, then prohibitive laws, then violence (of course) which eventually led to mass extermination of the Jews, Gypsies, mentally ill, physically incapacitated and any other "undesireables" that didn't measure up to the "high standards" of the Teutonic Aryan. And the shame of the 20th century occurred.
And now, we are devolving again.  In a different way and for different secular reasons, but the underlying cause is the same.  No God, no civilization.  And then everything and anything goes.  As it says in Judges, "every man did what was right in his own eyes", which, to me, defines Total Chaos.
Western Civilization is falling apart, and, if adults want to kill each other, while that is horrible, it is not unthinkable.  It has been going on since time began.  If adults maul, mistreat, sexually abuse and ultimately murder children, too small to do more damage than get on someone's nerves, it is a sign of pure evil having entered in.   1930's deja vu with a little Clockwork Orange and 1984 thrown in.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Until the rapture occurs, I sense this will continue as God's faithfulness endures. Thanks for this.

Island Rider said...

Amen