(long, boring navel-gazing to follow)
Many--if not most--of us bloviators on the right felt it happen after November 3, 2004: the classic mission-accomplished letdown. A portion of that number fought through it. Some broke free; others—like me—are still working on it.
I was beginning to notice that much of the issues seemed to be recurring, in theme, if not in facts.
• Outrageous comments by Democrat politicians on domestic subjects
• Pessimistic prognostication on international affairs by Democrats politicians
• Denigration of the US Armed Forces by members of the traditional media
• Seemingly tiny skirmishes of misinformation/ignorance/illogic being fought in corners of the internet like this one in the comments of a Citizen Smash post.
• The worst thing: woundingly (but not unexpectedly) shrill misrepresentations about Christianity—even from people I respect.
• Situations in which saying nothing is the best thing to do
At some point, after having to put out these fires over and over again, the temptation to give up becomes nearly overwhelming, and I was nearly overwhelmed by it. All the circular metaphors pop up to describe that feeling: on a merry-go-round, chasing one’s tail, etc. Aside from a few commitments I’ve made—to the Bear Flag League and to Pajamas Media (yes, I signed up)--I was thinking about scaling things way back, possibly quitting.
Then I got an email from a friend from whom I hadn’t heard in a while.
It was a fantastic one and a horrible one at the same time. The good news or rather, the Good News: my friend had been an atheist; now he’s a Christian and not a mere CINO. Think ex-smoker on the subject of cigarettes. That’s how passionate he is about Jesus Christ.
The bad news: not only does he hate my blog, but equates any political wrangling to cock-fighting or some other back-alley hobby. (He had enough sense of self-preservation not to equate it with a certain ancient profession, however.)
For so long I was fortunate. However, it was bound to happen sooner or later: someone I have known for a long time, cared about and whose opinion I respected would slam my efforts here. Hard. Worse, he made me feel guilty; as though—by engaging in this “cock-fighting” that I’m slighting my service to the Lord.
Yes, now I know that some of you are going to jump to my defense (and you guys are great), but don’t be like me: look before you leap. I laid into him; defending something that I was already having second thoughts about anyway. You know what that’s a symptom of, right? It’s a symptom of pride.
After my pride had subsided, however, I was forced to consider the futility of politics, power and arguing about the two, especially since I adhere to and have faith in the Power.
From that consideration stems this question: should devout Christians cool their heels until the Messiah returns? Should we all devote ourselves to prayer and contemplation until the Day? After all, according to scripture, world events, large- and small-scale, will only get worse and worse until then; and the name of Jesus Christ is starting to make more and more demons screech in protest. So why should I continue to beat my head against a brick wall when there is world outrage over the non-flushing of a Koran and five reported mishandlings of other Korans at the Guantanamo Bay prison for terrorists? You know the place: the dreaded gulag from which a prisoner leaves weighing more than when he entered? (The next time he visits Russia, President Bush ought to go visit Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s dacha; the president is obviously unclear on the gulag concept, but then so is Amnesty International.)
Meanwhile, no one with any political power wants to talk about Darfur in Sudan.*
Why get down in the mud? Why do anything? Heck, one might as well ask why anyone gets out of bed in the morning. After reading about the following, I wanted to close my door and never open it again.
As most of you know, I live in LA, the largest city in the most populous and most liberal state of the union. Yes, it’s the same city which contains Thomas Jefferson High School, the high school from which my great-aunt graduated some sixty-odd years ago, as did LA’s Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa much more recently. ‘Jeff’ has been in the news lately due to its black versus Latino race riots. It is during these types of events in which we get those ironies and those moments that make one want to move out into a wilderness; not just the riots but the fact that members of the Nation of Islam are considered the voices of reason. Or that some student suggests that blacks and browns shouldn’t be fighting each other because the whites are the real enemy.
That convent is sounding better and better all the time, but, conversely, it’s not.
To separate oneself from all the dross (and the good things) of this world is to break one of the commandments: to love your neighbor as yourself. Because that's what communication, debate, arguing, etc. is; a form of love. It's wanting to reach out to others and want to have them reach back.
It’s my belief that God put us—all of us—here for a reason and, for most of us, it isn’t just to hole ourselves up in prayer and contemplation and wait for the end times. Some of us have to get down in the mud and rassle with the hogs, when necessary. (Hey you, is that how you spell rassle?) Throwing up one’s hands is exactly what it sounds like: running from a fight.
And, after considering what my military brethren in Iraq and Afghanistan have to wake up to every morning—assuming they get any sleep—it would be especially selfish and lazy not to defend their reputation here, even if I talk about nothing else.
My friend told me that it would make him happy for me to prove him wrong. Well, I can’t prove it. I only know that he is.
*I wrote this before President Bush talked about Darfur with South African President Thabo Mbeki this morning.
