I have been re-reading to be fortified for the world to come. Soon there will be more to say. For now…
SDG
Albert J. Nock tagged posts
Isaiah’s job was written by Albert J. Nock some years ago, but the prophet’s work always needs to be picked up and carried on. This is a never ending task. It is always an immediate task when one considers that we have gone from a melting pot, to a salad bowl and finally to a toilet bowl (HT: Vox Popoli commenter Chris Mallory).
Pray for the remnant.
SDG
One should always remember that the current schooling system is functioning perfectly. What is demonstrated here is not to be taken as a failure on the part of the school. In fact it is exactly what the school is designed, managed and operated to accomplish.
First, a local example:
*Please note that the punctuation form used in this announcement is accurately reproduced here to demonstrate the level of quality provided by the previous tax rate and will most certainly improve with the increased tax rate.
If you can come to terms with this local example then I would suggest reading what Thomas Fleming has written in his essay, Thinking Outside the Boxes.
To quote Amos Bronson Alcott: “To be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.”
So it goes….
SDG
I have been reminded over the past couple of months that the most interesting infection that a person can get is an infected mind. That is to say, a mind that is no longer going with the grain, but against the grain of the universe. The most common symptom of this infection is the thoughts that spending long hours on THE JOB is what keeps the world spinning.
Now, mind you, I have had this infection and could very easily catch it again. However, thems that have it can be very hard on thems that don’t have it.
A very close friend, now on to his reward, did not have it and I do not remember a time when he did have it. On a wet day, this fellow traveler possibly topped the scales at 100 pounds. When he showed up the kitchen would open and would not close for his entire stay. He always had a healthy appetite. He would show up and we would bring him in. His people lived 40 or 50 miles southwest of our place. After four or five days, my mom would ask him if maybe he should contact his people to let them know where he was (I think she was figuring on reducing her feed bill as soon as possible as well). “No”, he would respond, “they will be glad to see me when I get there.” He was great company and always pitched in where needed, but he simple never got worked up about what day it was or when the next ‘event’ was going to happen. After some time would pass, he would get up one morning and say ‘Adios’ and that was that. He would be off to the next stop. It might be home or anywhere else. It just did not matter.
Since I have departed from my lane in the rat race, I have given less thought to clock time, either railroad time or government time. It has made me very aware of how much time most people do not have. I am not surprised nor disappointed by this. Mr. Nock, in what he describes as economism hit the nail on the head, stated that western society had only one philosophy which was to interpret the whole of human life in terms of the production, acquisition, and distribution of wealth. He continued by noting that most people are like certain Philippians in the time of St. Paul, their gods are their bellies, and they have no mind for anything beyond έπίγεια (earthly things). Of course as one drinks deeply of the literature, one finds that in America, at least, this has been true since A.D. 1492. And so it goes….
SDG
As advice to middle aged reactionaries, Dr. Bruce Charlton has written, ‘Don’t read: re-read. (You have already read what you need to know.)’
A recent experience put into mind Mr. Nock’s memoirs.
I recently got news about a small village of which I had fond recollections. In years past, this village was the home of an elderly mendicant who had been trained in the highest arts of his rebellious Christian sect. He had taken his position and its responsibilities seriously. However, as time pasted and the dragon’s breath of Gresham’s Law took its toll on his rulers, he was pastured without pasturage. Thus, when we met his teeth were long in the mendicancy that was his burden.
While he lived in this village and took part in the villager’s lives, he continued to ply his vocation, abet in a more degraded state. In his wisdom he knew the results of his kind of work were difficult to measure. But the villagers were kind, the conversation congenial and the weather mild. This is as it was when I found him.
As I sat at his feet, we would sharpen each other. He found great pleasure in tempering my steel. Our conversations would range over much territory and occasionally on the situation in the village. From him I learned that the villagers had some religious leanings. However, as he noted, it was indeterminate at best and down right bestial at worst.
He has sense gone on to better things and although I have much to say about this grand old man, it is the village that concerns me today. It seems that the entire village has been converted to Christianity. The news about the village was enthusiastically exclaimed by a villager with whom I am acquainted. As with Mr. Nock, a chill coursed through me at the proclamation.
Mr. Nock continues,
“If it meant one thing, it was such an enormous pretension that I could hardly imagine a person of any delicacy who knew its implications would dare to advance it. If it meant another, on would hardly know how seriously to take it… a better informed person might find that the statement pointed at something mostly meaningless or even largely stultifying.”
Like Mr. Nock’s character, my villager was serious enough. Again, following Mr. Nock, I thought the question whether a village is or is not religious is hard enough to answer; and given that things have degraded since Mr. Nock’s time, the question of whether and entire village is or is not Christian is impossible to answer categorically; “the answer might mean anything or nothing.”
Defining terms has never been high on the list of important qualities found among enthusiast. So, I not dwell on the embarrassing truth. Suffice it to say that the villagers feel good about themselves, they remain kind and congenial and everything continues as it was. Because they are a very prosperous and secure village, they have never considered what Jesus has said and St. Mark recorded at the end of his eighth chapter.
And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.
It may be said that I am being too hard on these modern villagers. Perhaps that is true, but that complaint was lodged against my Master as well. Never the less, there it is. As Professor Daniel Deutschlander says about Jesus; “He asks and he insists on it: Deny yourself, and take up the cross and follow me. He asks and he insists on it: Be a Christian!”
That is all well and good. And yet, as Mr. Nock notes, if a person “took these matters as stated, and he faithfully followed out their prescriptions …in the first century and probably in the second, he would have passed muster as a Christian.” He continues by writing, it “has been done and is being done; mainly, as is natural, in an inconspicuous way by inconspicuous persons…”
They are there as a substratum of right thinking and well doing, but as the Old Testament prophets found, they are difficult to find and impossible to know. Except that they are despised and persecuted since they have no substance in this world. They can not be found in villages where prosperity and security is the main. Suffer they must and suffer they will, until Judgment Day.
Yes, there are Christians in the world and they form the hidden church, the saving remnant. I am glad for it. The villagers in question have not yet arrived. I do wish them well.
SDG