The Problem with the Modern West, solved?

 I'm a professional, I have too much education and worked my tail off to prove it, but then life happened and I ended up at home raising a family, helping keep a church alive and thriving, writing too much, and baking too many desserts.  When I was a kid in daycare, daycare was weird and a last resort and socially questionable.  When I have kids, not having your kids in daycare is looked at askance, as if I'm socially depriving them or shipwrecking my own personal life.  I get questioned by people who never utilize my services, save perhaps once in five years, why I'm not working full time and depriving them of the convenience of interrupting Christmas or so they can get something minor done when it is convenient to them.  Then the pandemic happened and everyone is bemoaning all these poor women 'trapped' at home with their own children, how dreadful!  Congratulations are due to the Great Enemy of Humanity for his propaganda campaign that has transformed the heart of human society and culture into drudgery, toil and tedium.  But this gal says it much better, and far more graciously. 

I worked so hard at my career, but it failed, it left me in debt and burned out with no knowledge of myself and no social life, just a phone that might ring at any hour and nothing else.  I don't get paid now, at least not much, but my kids, my husband, and I, have a life, a happy, peaceful, fun life.  It's nice to set my own hours, not to start when the phone rings, and be my own boss.  And to be able to be there for other people when they need someone.  This is freedom, not slavery.  And the lives that I am touching will touch countless others for years to come.  That's a better legacy I can leave my kids than just money in the bank, though that's nice too!  So for most of the problems in our modern west, reestablishing stable, happy, healthy homes is vital, if only we will embrace it.  We all set off into the world looking for the one place we leave behind: Home.

Lazy blogging all the way!

 Here's a great little story on imagination and why it is even more vital in our ever more virtual reality, enjoy!

Life in a minor key!

 If you have ever read this blog before, you probably realize that I am obsessed with the old Christmas hymns, and while I am not musical (if I had ever learnt!) I love music, especially this time of year.  One thing I have learned about music is that there are both major and minor chords, if you play three notes to the chord on a piano for instance, the two outside notes are the same, only the inside note changes slightly but that makes all the difference.  Major chords sound happy and bold while the minor variation is sad, mysterious, deep, and haunting.  Think about the difference between 'Joy to the World' and 'What Child is This?' the former is mostly major chords, bold and triumphant and happy, while the latter is composed of many minor chords, full of mystery and enigma, haunting melodies and tinged with grief but certainly not hopeless, similar to many of my favorite carols: 'We Three Kings, God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen, O Come O Come Emmanuel...'

That's what the gospel gets right, that's one big reason it resonates with so many people through countless cultures and times: it reflects the reality to which they are accustomed, it fits the tale of life as they know it, save it introduces this strange thing called hope, along with love, peace, and joy beyond the world's understanding, but in pursuing that, it doesn't ignore the pain, the sorrow, the ugliness, the death of this current age.  The Gospel of the Modern West is rather: happiness now and always on my own terms.  And when we have pandemics, political upsets, supply chain problems, we don't have anywhere to turn or know what to do.  We've been told from our cradles that if we just elect the right person or pass the right laws or teach the right stuff everybody will be happy and prosperous and get along and if they don't, it must be a problem with the system, or education, or something, because we are owed happiness and if we don't get it, we have every right to complain and whine and even revolt.  But life isn't written in a major key, we can't write our own reality no matter how technologically advanced we become, yes there are songs and measures strong with major chords, but most of life is fraught with mystery, confusion, grief, and hurt.  We need a worldview big, broad, and deep enough to contain it all and provide an answer thereto, not just more empty promises of what life will be if we only do X or refrain from Y.

But even in the sorrow there is beauty, in the grief there is hope, there is depth and meaning and a future and purpose.  The best Christmas songs are those that regard not only the manger but also the cross, but they don't stop there, for easter morning looms brighter still.  So with those haunting melodies in mind, I leave you with these curious words, the little known latter verses of 'We Three Kings:'

"Myrrh is mine; its bitter perfume 

breathes a life of gathering gloom; 

sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, 

sealed in the stone-cold tomb.

Glorious now behold him arise; 

King and God and sacrifice: 

Alleluia, Alleluia, 

sounds through the earth and skies."

The cure for our modern cultural malaise?

 This is a wonderful article to brighten up any life or situation, take a look!

Lazy blogging episode LXVIII

 Here's a lovely little tribute to Narnia!

Another good article on fairy tales!

 Here's the original article here,  but you have to love any article lovingly referencing C.S.Lewis (at least I do!).  It isn't wrong to yearn for something, indeed, we were built to yearn, but only for our true God and Creator, though oftentimes we mistake wanting various things He has made for our innate desire for Himself.  That's why we love stories, because we are living in the grandest story of all and we want, above  all things, to realize that happy ending, now, not later!  But we're still like Sam and Frodo, tramping through the wilds of reality, in quest of we aren't quite sure what, wishing rather to sit around a bright hearth, cocoa in hand, telling our loved ones all the tale, but we won't have a tale to tell unless we keep on trekking through the interminable wilderness, whatever that may be in our own particular tales.  And it is that desire, that yearning, that keeps us going, only we need to remember for Who we truly long and never be merely satisfied or content with any lesser what.

On eucatastrophe

 Here's a great little article touching on Tolkien and what tragedy for one of his greatest characters means for each of us.