Life of Pride
Saturday, July 15, 2006
All right, yesterday's post was seriously melodramatic. I wrote it 'cause I'm struggling to come to grips with some bits of life - namely, where is the balance between cynicism and the old self of blind faith? The old me said, "God can do anything He wants, and He has done amazing things with people all through history." The cynical me says, "People always mess everything up. America is doomed, because we won't do what we ought." Truth be told, I don't know if I can summon up enough love for "America" as a political nation to pray wholeheartedly that it be saved. That's why the melodrama. I've been trying to talk myself into feeling "right," because I'm almost convinced there's something wrong with me. Every good, solid American loves his country. Doesn't he?
Still, I don't want America to collapse, and I'm going to work hard to hold it together. In the words of Whittaker Chambers when he wrote Witness, I feel like I'm working on the "losing side of history." I believe America is past its prime. We're not building a nation any more. We're merely conserving what we can of a nation that once existed.
I'm glad that's not the whole story. I know that our "loss is gain" so long as we serve Christ. No matter what, I know that everything all together will end well. America may live too, if God chooses to save it.
Here, then, is the balance between pessimism and optimism. I think America will die, but I work as though it will live. The problem is that I can't resolve this dilemma rationally. It resides at the point where faith and reason meet. Faith is reason's foundation, so I can't derive it. I just have to accept it. I have to understand that I don't understand. And at that, adieu for now.
Still, I don't want America to collapse, and I'm going to work hard to hold it together. In the words of Whittaker Chambers when he wrote Witness, I feel like I'm working on the "losing side of history." I believe America is past its prime. We're not building a nation any more. We're merely conserving what we can of a nation that once existed.
I'm glad that's not the whole story. I know that our "loss is gain" so long as we serve Christ. No matter what, I know that everything all together will end well. America may live too, if God chooses to save it.
Here, then, is the balance between pessimism and optimism. I think America will die, but I work as though it will live. The problem is that I can't resolve this dilemma rationally. It resides at the point where faith and reason meet. Faith is reason's foundation, so I can't derive it. I just have to accept it. I have to understand that I don't understand. And at that, adieu for now.
Comments:
This is a question I've considered plenty of times in the past. In fact, a (military) fellow in a job interview a couple years back asked me where I see our country going. I still stick by the answer I gave him:
America, as a nation-state, will fall in the long run - no great nation or empire has survived all of history. But, so help me God, I will do everything in my power to assure that she does not fall on my watch. I cannot do more; I dare not do less.
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America, as a nation-state, will fall in the long run - no great nation or empire has survived all of history. But, so help me God, I will do everything in my power to assure that she does not fall on my watch. I cannot do more; I dare not do less.
