| | an adaptation:
"If a transtemporal, transfinite good is our real destiny, then any other good on which our desire fixes must be in some degree fallacious, us bear at best only a symbolical elation to what will truly satisfy.
"... almost all our modern philosophies [or campaigns] have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth [this america]. And yet it is a remarkable thing that such [campaigns] of Progress or Creative Evolution [change] themselves bear reluctant witness to the truth that our real goal is elsewhere. When they want to convince you that earth [america] is your home, notice how they set about it. They begin by trying to persuade you that [america] can be made into heaven, thus giving a sop to your sense of exile in [america] as it is [or whichever given administration]. Next, they tell you that this fortunate event is still a god way off in the future [beginning next january], thus giving a sop to your knowledge that the fatherland is not here and now. Finally, lest your longing for the transtemporal should awake and spoil the whole affair, they use any rhetoric that comes to hand to keep out of your mind the recollection that even if all the happiness they promised could come to man [in america], yet still each generation [or administration] would lose it by death, including the last generation of all, and the whole story would be nothing, not even a story, for ever and ever. Hence all the nonsense that Mr. Shaw puts into the final speech of Lilith, and Bergson's remark that the elan vital is capable of surmounting all obstacles [yes, we can], perhaps even death [yes we can]-- as if we could believe that an social or biological development on this planet [or this country] will delay the senility of the sun or reverse the second law of thermodynamics." -from The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis (brackets mine)
with this in mind, go see this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY
now, all of this is by no means an attack specifically on obama, or anyone else. it is however what has been running through my mind in the midst of so much rhetoric throughout these primaries. much of what we hear seems to me to be this sort of thing. indeed christians are called, i believe, to work out God's Kingdom on earth, but always with a sort of holy indifference, knowing that it will not fully come until He does. something in me quivers at the connection that Hope, though indeed real, is dependent upon or somehow proffered by any specific candidate. there are certainly good and bad candidates, and there are certainly right and wrong directions for the country, which we should all be involved shaping in daily. but the best president in history will do little to change reality, or to give me any more or less Hope. i as much as anyone would like to be able to rally around a leader. but that leader should have an appropriate estimate of his importance, important though he may be. just some grains of salt. God give us wisdom, perspective, and Hope deeper and longer than any administration. Now i'm off to vote.
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| | Posted 2/5/2008 11:55 AM - 65 Views - 2 eProps - 1 Comment
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