The more I see of human politics the more I want the Kingdom of God.

The voices of financial doomsday are waiting for Monday.

As we begin to fall asleep here the Asian markets are waking up and looking at their world. What they see, that mixture of fact, figures, psychology, and gut, will start the day and by morning here the alchemy will be running its course. Speculation abounds. And if the herd panics, what then?

There’s a helplessness in it all, the idea that a handful of people on phones halfway around the world or halfway around the country can destroy, in a moment, the savings of a lifetime, the thin line between enough and want when work is no longer possible. Where is the trust? Where is the responsibility? Where is the sense? And what will happen when those words become like litter on the floor the morning after a party?

One thing is certain. We’re all about to wake up from the American dream. Whether the morning finds all the fine strings of the financial world still together or if it all comes unraveled the idea that the horizon is limitless, that wealth is unending, and acquisition is the content of life is doomed. In fact it was from the start but we, as Americans, have been able to borrow our way from the reality of the world for longer than most. Bills are coming due and the checkbook is empty.

What remains is the shape of the world which emerges from these days. Will the apprehensions of these days call us to ponder that which is greater and enduring or shape a culture where people turn on each other for whatever remains? Will we see the futility of the life we believed was right, a life divorced from transcendence, centered on materialism, and lived without the sense of a future? Can hardship and uncertainty burn away our conceits or will we become hard and bitter? How will the end of our illusions find us?

And how will it find the Church? It is for these moments, these times when the dreams are over and all the bills are due that her Truth becomes more stark against the background and more alive as well. When the facades of a culture dancing in illusion’s ballroom fall there will be a hunger that only Christ can truly fill. Will we be ready? Will I?

I don’t know, but as Sunday gives way to Monday we may all find out.

This is not a new finding. In his 1983 book “The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener,” skeptic and science writer Martin Gardner cited the decline of traditional religious belief among the better educated as one of the causes for an increase in pseudoscience, cults and superstition. He referenced a 1980 study published in the magazine Skeptical Inquirer that showed irreligious college students to be by far the most likely to embrace paranormal beliefs, while born-again Christian college students were the least likely.

Read more here.

Hat tip to Paradosis

I had to do something today that I never wanted to do, cancel services.

I’m on vacation now, and whether it was a matter of mixed up communications or people just not stepping up to the plate there was nobody available to serve Typica this Sunday. I spoke with our Dean about it and he advised me to cancel if no one stepped forward but I have mixed emotions about it all.

I hate the thought of our little church being empty and alone on Sunday. I hate the idea that some person may be searching for something and find our doors locked and the lights out. A part of me wants to make the trip myself, even if only a few people come, and serve what I can. It all seems like a failure to me. But I also can’t make people do what they don’t wish to do and I can’t make people care for a parish if they can’t, or won’t. And I need to rest if I’m going to keep on traveling. I’m no good to anyone if my nerves are burnt and there’s nothing left to give.

Tomorrow I will be at St. George Church here in the Twin Cities because even on vacation I want to be at church on Sunday. Yet my heart will be far away in LaCrosse in the empty quiet of St. Elias.

Rats…

Vacation starts today, a week off at home with a few projects and a Twins game thrown in. Suffice it to say I’m tired to the bone, road weary, and in need of a week or so of nothing in particular and I plan to take it, a sabbath for all the sabbaths missed.

From Salvo magazine…

Christianity is antithetical to the culture. Our devotion to it makes us offensive from the get-go. In other words, you know something is wrong when your values no longer offend; it most likely means that you are becoming a part of-and not merely engaging-secular society. And as I said earlier, we have a moral obligation to help keep others from caving in to the culture’s value system, because it will likewise prevent them from making choices that have the propensity to deteriorate their mental, physical, and spiritual health.

Sunday morning, 6:30 AM, south on highway 61.

The light is beginning to break through the fog on the valley floor and the tops of bluffs are catching the first sun as it reaches over the Mississippi. It’s a good time to travel. Most everyone is asleep, the tourists will show up after lunch and only people with a purpose are out this time in the morning, farmers, truckers, and folks on the day shift.

The trees are here and there just starting to turn. Fall colors in this part of the world are like paint poured over the land flowing north to south. In two weeks the fiery colors will have rolled down from Lake Superior but right now there’s only a drop or two, a spill from the world a few hours north.

September can be the best month of all, cooler temperatures, clear nights, a respite from the hot craziness of summer. Things feel more like routine and even though the sun goes down earlier the daylight seems more precious and more alive. People like to get married in September because of it and go to football games too.

But I’m driving south, listening to something on XM and thinking about the day ahead. There are things to do, things under deadline. September is about the reminder of tasks that need completion before the cold sets in and changes everything. A swirl of colors settles over the world in September but so does a swirl of tasks and when I park the car in front of St. Elias I know there will be much to do.

But not now. The car is fine. The sun is breaking through the valley fog and the tops of the bluffs are coming into view at sunrise. I have the road mostly to myself and my phone is on but everyone who could call is asleep. Minnieska slips by in the quiet and that’s good enough.

On the “Orthodoxy of Tomorrow…”

An interesting article from Frederica Matthewes-Green…