Long as I remember, the rain been comin’ down.
Clouds of mystery pourin’ confusion on the ground.
Good men through the ages tryin’ to find the sun…
And I wonder, still I wonder who’ll stop the rain.
~John Fogerty, CCR
Good Morning Dear Friend! It has been a rough week. Hell, it’s been a rough few years for most of us (whether we know it or not). One of the most amazing things about life is your perspective of it. The very same event or set of events can have the complete opposite effects on people because of perspective. In a normal, healthy functioning society this is a good thing. It creates a diversity of thought that stimulates and inspires that society to better places. In a dysfunctional society, things like perspective, stimulation and inspiration slowly become the property of the Collective…relinquished through soft and quiet submission by the individual. Rain is an excellent metaphor for the hell this brings…
State of the Soul
Why do we struggle so with stopping the rain and finding the sun…as Fogerty asks of us?
How in the world could anyone have trouble finding the sun? A) Its enormous…kind of tough to hide under the bed. B) We know exactly where it will be and when it will be there…every single day! What amazes me Dear Friend is the fact that Fogerty’s metaphorical subject (soul) has the exact same attributes…and yet somehow we remain “tryin’ to find it…through the ages”. I have some thoughts on this I would like to share…
The State of the Union is the State of the Soul. My friends, unplug the cable feed for two seconds and listen to me…please! This ship is going down. It is sinking and it is sinking fast. There is a powerful scene in the movie Titanic after the “unsinkable” ship has struck the iceberg. The architect who designed the ship is explaining to the captain that due to the location of the rip in the hull, design of the compartments and bulkheads…and a domino effect, the ship will sink. The next horrific thought that the captain processes in agony is the number of passengers…and the number and capacity of life boats. Where is your life boat Dear Friend?
Let me approach this from another angle. If I mention the name Mother Teresa, what comes to your mind? So I will wager the following as a matter of probability. If you are a baby-boomer or older, just the name alone lifted your spirit. The vision you had was light, angelic and one of grace. If you are in your twenties or thirties, you experienced old, ugly, ragged…even homeless. In other words, an image you would not aspire to. This is not by accident Dear Friend. We do not have enough life boats because we do not aspire to the life boat. And we do not aspire to the life boat because the collective perspective, having been shepherded so, no longer sees the need…or subsequent value. (Also the tragic consequence of the Elite Shipbuilder!)
The rain coming our way will make the Great Depression seem like a day in the park. I say this with certainty, not because of the social-economic-political dominos of inevitability falling all around us, but because of who we’ve become. Yesterday I wrote my piece inspired by Ann Barnhardt’s lecture on the Vendee Genocide. The unspeakable horror and atrocity that man unleashed upon man, woman and child when that society was generally a more God-fearing, faithful and principled one fills my heart with dread at the thought of the gnarling evil prowling beneath this one.
If I could trade my life for your awakening, I would do it in an instant because not only do I have a life boat…I have a life boat that has been so well serviced with TLC, I almost can’t wait to put her to the test! Our body, on the other hand, is the Titanic…the doomed pile of rust we cling to! Please, I beg you…find your vessel. Bring her out! Give her a fresh coat of paint! Take her on the water and exercise her planks…let them know the waves. Let her oars feel the water…and know Dear Friend, a good night’s sleep!
http://shutupnsing.wordpress.com/2012/07/22/the-sunday-morning-tune-up-july-22nd-2012-edition/
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