Monday Morning Music Ministry

9-16-24

Daylight Savings Time is about to end, and I never have been able to figure out whether to be grateful or regretful – you know, “gaining” or losing an hour of sleep. Just go to sleep, like my mother used to say. It’s like the “glass half-empty vs half-full” discussions. Just drink it, or re-fill it, and be quiet. Well, there are many things I don’t understand.

I do know that Autumn, that imminent change of season, traditionally has been regarded in poetry and art as the gloomiest of the four seasons. It seems odd, but among the testimonies of not regarding cold, dead Winter as gloomy (a host of happy outdoor activities and holidays have already sprung to your mind) is the long narrative poem by John Greenleaf Whittier, Snowbound. A 19th-century family is stuck in the house after a tremendous blizzard, and possible feelings of dread or fear are replaced by bonding, reminiscences, humor. Outside, all is frozen and every living thing looks dead, but warmth and life glow in the family circle. Winter = not so bad.

Autumn is the only season, at least in the English language, that has more than one name. Among its traditional names was Harvest – before urban living made that concept somewhat abstract. Then there is the familiar Fall whose origin philologists have not been able to trace, but there is the obvious association with “fallen leaves.”

As I say, and despite the warm associations we might have with colorful leaves and familiar smells in the air, in literature and art Fall is often the basis of melancholia. Some psychologists say that Fall outpaces Winter as the season of peoples’ dark depression. Perhaps, after sunny and bright summertime, the palpable signs of death surround us. Dying and falling leaves. Bare trees. Wilted flower-beds. Field animals looking for shelter. Earlier dusk and darkness descends. Colder air drives us indoors.

The adagio from Antonio Vivaldi’s “Autumn” in his iconic concerti grossi The Four Seasons is beautiful – but covers us in a sad, melancholy cloak.

If we might feel overshadowed by vague signs of dying and death, however, don’t blame it all on nature. In a larger sense, humankind – the post-Christian West especially – is at a point where we choose Death at almost every opportunity. In many way we live in a Culture of Death.

Yes, there have always been wars and rumors of wars… but today they are deadlier than ever, a fact that encourages rather than deters the war parties running governments. A Culture of Death.

We have developed new scientific means to extend life and confront diseases… but today, Science also aggressively pursues ways to end lives. A vast majority of birth “defects” are “terminated” – that is to say, babies are killed. A majority of unwed mothers arrange for their babies to be killed – something that politicians call “health care.” A Culture of Death.

The various surgical and “psychological” imperatives toward lower birth rates, “transgender” advocacy, homosexual relationships, genital mutilation – even denying parental notifications and obligating taxpayers to support – resist procreation and the furtherance of life. A Culture of Death.

The most obvious contemporary versions of human sacrifice and infanticide – the American spin on practices we condemn in ancient societies and pagan tribes – are “mercy killings” and, of course, abortion. Now I myself once was quite inured to the concept and practice; I viewed abortion as a calendar-skewed version of birth control. I now feel like I have blood on my hands. So you can jump on my “conversion,” but don’t jump ugly; many of us have seen the light. Along my personal Road to Damascus, I scored one of the rare interviews with the lady who was “Roe” of Roe vs Wade… and who became bitterly regretful about her role. Beyond that, I cannot understand those who endlessly bemoan the accounts Jews deemed “inconvenient” by Nazis, yet are quite comfortable with 63.5-million “inconvenient” babies killed since Roe. A Culture of Death.

And people feel depressed by Signs of Death that accompany the return of Autumn? What an insult, if I may say, to Mother Nature and (properly) Father God. Maybe that “glass half-empty or half-full” metaphor has resonance after all. Maybe Harvest-Autumn-Fall is entirely different than many people are wont to perceive.

Rejoice! Leaves die, but before they happily flutter among us, they clothe themselves with brilliant reds and yellows and orange colors that painters can hardly capture. The aromas of Autumn are unique, almost romantic. (I hope your neighborhoods still allow the burning of raked leaves.) Yes… harvests! Vegetables and fruits that were nurtured through the Summer can now be enjoyed – different colors and flavors associated only with Fall. Crisp air? Invigorating; time to huddle and cuddle; and to experience a new aspect of nature… not a dying one.

And if trees go bare, and crops are harvested, and things superficially look bleak… we cannot forget that many things go dormant, but do not die. Seeds will sprout, even through cracks in cement. Flowers will bloom in deserts and other unexpected places. Woodland animals are born, blink, and open their eyes.

Landscapes are resplendent with color. “Dead” wildflowers and Indian corn grace our homes. Seashells and periwinkles, so unique and colorful, are, after all, virtual external skeletons and husks of dead life; but beautiful. The sun, they tell us, is dying… but it gives life and warmth. My go-to source of wise comments (after the Bible), many of you know, is Theodore Roosevelt. On these subjects he once wrote, “Both life and death are part of the Great Adventure,” and it surely is so.

Finally let us remember, always remember, the One who tasted death… yet overcame it. Jesus died, so that our souls escape eternity in hell where there is no life. We, like our Savior, can overcome sin, death, and the grave, and know eternal life.

A Culture of Life!
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Click: I’ll Have A New Life

9-9-24

“Something is happening in our world, and I want to be part of it!”

My friend said that to me as we recently discussed current events (“current” as in “high voltage”), and she took the words from my mouth, as it were. Our common point of view is not unalloyed, and I wonder how many readers agree. That is, some things are happening – many things are changing – and few of them are to our liking… but. We want to, we need to, be part of understanding them, resisting many of them, and rescuing our society. We can make things happen too.

Redeem our culture, that is. Protect our families. Defend our faith.

This will not be a political column. As politics have invaded every sphere of life these days, however, we must contend when necessary. Goliath challenged King Saul for 40 days until David stepped up. He recognized that the Philistines were a threat; he accepted that giants were real; and he acted. Neither politeness nor cowardice nor prudence nor excuses nor pride were availed: it was time to act.

Some things are happening in our world. I will list a few. Join me on a 30,000-feet view.

For all of Western civilization’s “progress,” a lot of our intelligence is artificial. I am turning that phrase around, to mean that myriad assumptions are swindles, despite our smug arrogance. After generations of societal life in many places and varied conditions, we believe that our world has evolved to a place where families are no longer sacred foundation-stones; where men and women do not have essential characteristics and functions; where faith must not play a vital role in peoples’ lives; where respect, sexual fidelity, and civility are irrelevancies; where traditions are not valuable tools for moving forward.

This nonsense is palpable, and dangerous. When we review history – which is a taskmaster, not merely a teacher; certainly not a gentle persuader – we see that every civilization that has veered toward these heresies has perished. Often in ugly and brutal fashion. Seldom has a culture chosen to embrace these suicidal tendencies as lustily as ours is doing.

Some other things are happening in our world. As I assured you, I am not getting political, but I will list some facts – largely obscure at the moment, even from a 30,000-foot overview.

Quietly but quickly there are changes afoot. They might be harbingers of a revolution of redemption; or they might be blips on the screen of the cultural decline; or they might be death throes of a world doomed to join past civilizations on the trash-heap of history.

In the major Western nations there are extreme shake-ups in politics (unavoidable to mention, except as “politics” represents many aspects within societies). During the US elections, former Democrats named Trump and Kennedy and Musk and Gabbard now control the Republican Party, or at least the presidential campaign. The Blue-Collar Billionaire and his new allies (and supporters) largely have embraced an agenda that embraces Christian values and conservative priorities.

In the United Kingdom, a four-month-old party named Reform garnered almost as many votes as the victorious Labor Party in recent Parliamentary elections. It is, like the new GOP, similarly small-government, low-tax, anti-immigrant in its focus. The rise of the National Front in France tells the same story. As the leaders of these parties have split from the mainstream and are political renegades, so does the popular leader of Hungary; he shares their platform views, and is a former ally (strongly former!) of George Soros.

In Germany, in recent days the rise of new parties – AfD (Alternative for Germany) and the months-old party of Sahra Wagenknecht – have captured almost half of the votes in two large states, Saxony and Thuringia. The new movements are in certain aspects right and left, respectively, yet they share general free-market, anti-censorship, foreign-policy views (including skepticism about Ukraine) that have observers foreseeing an eventual alliance.

“Horseshoe Politics,” it is being called – where right and left ultimately and nearly meet. New labels are applied – Protest; Populism; Common-Sense – but “Something is happening in our world, and we want to be part of it!”

What place is all this in a Christian essay, one that offers to “put a song in our hearts” to start our week? Well, nothing – if we think we are in fact doomed, too far down the tubes. I can be gloomier, by the way: I believe God has held His hand; that America and the West have rebelled and sinned to an extent that we deserve His severe judgment; that, searching End-Times prophecy, we discern no hint that there will be an America in the world’s last days…

Yet God has held His hand. We are called to repent, and not surrender. As we, individual sinners, may be redeemed, so can our nation find salvation. (I have learned this week that a new book, Write and Live His Answer Now, will reprint an essay I wrote challenging Christians not to plead for Revival, but rather to generate Revival.)

Regarding the political realignments I listed – is the Lord “shaking the nations”? Spiritual revival plays varied roles in all this turmoil, but… there are strange things happ’nin’ every day, as the old Spiritual goes. For instance, without assuming too much, the recent, and frequent, God-affirming testimonies of Robert F Kennedy Jr are surprising and encouraging.

Scripture tells us that especially in times like these we can’t feel at home in the world anymore. But something is happening in our world. We need to discern: maybe something new, and good. And we need to be a part of it!

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Click: This World Is Not My Home