I came to this university with an open mind and a fire burning in my chest I was on a quest for higher learning now here I am
I’d like to thank my professors for teaching me to be a free thinker, where I’m totally free to think… what you want me to think
I loved my favorite class so much it’s hard to put it in words Destabilizing Hegemonic Cishetero Amatonormativity in Birds changed my life
thank you for teaching me problematizing instead of problem solving all this time I could have been trying to cure cancer instead you taught me to point at someone and say “you’re the cancer”
I asked you to help me unravel the great philosophers you dazzled me with 100 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion officers I was going to say that their 15 million dollar combined salary didn’t actually help educate anyone but they did keep over 100 chairs from floating away
you taught me to lower my gaze whenever I tried to think for myself you censored me and lowered my grade
thank you for exposing the lie of objective truth I mean, I came to University to participate in the universally respected pursuit of wisdom and the transmission of knowledge
to learn to differentiate between the intellectually fashionable and the perpetually applicable to partake of your sacred manna
I was starving for your esteemed insight and you fed me propaganda
I came to you seeking a guardian of reason and you discarded reason
I came for critical thinking you gave me critical theory
I wanted to build on a shared foundation you told me there’s no such thing thanks to your advice I’ve learned to turn openness from a virtue into a vice
I wanted a liberal education I wanted to see the world I was told this was the place you showed me that the only way to see the world is through the lens of gender, sexuality, and race
E Pluribus Unum lol thank you and your syllabus for disproving such nonsense thank you for teaching me to look at diversity as a device for division, I was naive to think that diversity could be beautiful, that we could learn from each other and build a society together, strengths and weaknesses weaved into a tapestry of unanticipated breadth, depth, and majestyno – your way is better we must deconstruct
we must reject the great books in favor of the great grievances I used to think the American dream was the opportunity for each to achieve according to his or her determination and honed expertise no ma’am – now I know the American dream is a government program
I used to think morality stemmed from natural rights now I know that morality stems from status and likes and trendy ideologies
after four years I can’t tell you anything about molecular biology or chemistry or the importance of nucleic acids or adrenal glands but I can tell you that abortion should be legal, free, and on-demand
I didn’t learn anything about what truth is but I did unlearn what 2+2 is you say I’m smarter for that and I believe you
I believe you that what happened to the universities in Germany in the 1930s certainly isn’t happening here
I didn’t study much history but the one thing I learned about its atrocities was that I could not possibly be guilty of the same foibles that foiled those civilizations the same infirmities that put millions in infirmaries no those are past people – savage I have surpassed people make statues of me that mobs will never find reason to ravage
thank you for bringing me up in front of a class of people for struggle sessions thank you for bringing my friend up – he agreed that it was so virtuous of you to tell everyone that because of his skin color, he’s unlikely to succeed
they say oh, the humanity I say oh, the humanities
thank you for replacing facts with post-factual narratives and for your relentless attacks on America
thank you for never letting anyone with a dissenting sentiment speak on this campus, or any campus I know that what you’ve taught me would stand against whatever they have to say so you’re right it’s best to just keep them away thank you for the safe spaces
thank you for the guest lecturers that you did allow who spoke so graciously about “fantasies of unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in their way” that always made my day I never once questioned why that was acceptable but having someone come and speak about, I don’t know, the Constitution, or freedom, or fulfilling one’s potential that was forbidden
they say that you should be ashamed of yourselves for what you’ve done to free speech, free thought, and truth seeking and for shaming anyone that dares break from the mold that every one of your ideas are shaped from they say it’s crazy that people feel less free to speak in your classrooms than they did in the authoritarian states that they escaped from
I say, well… I say whatever you want me to say
I came to this university with an open mind thank you so much for closing it
thank you for what you’ve become for what you’ve done to me to my generation to western civilization for putting thousands of years of human progress on the brink
Justice is one of the few fundamental truths that we all innately understand as humans. A 2 year old is innocent. A 40 year old rapist who runs a sex-trafficking ring is not. He’s incurred a great moral debt. If that debt were never paid it would be a great injustice. We sense that deeply.
We are keenly aware of transgression and violations of natural law. It’s why we have words for guilt, remorse, and shame. Religion is very much humankind’s accounting system for the economy of innocence and blame. It seeks to classify corruption. To diagnose the divergence of good and evil. To find respite from imperfection and restitution from impurity.
Based on the current modus operandi of all public institutions in this country and much of the West, I want to compare two relevant religions – Identity Politics, and Christianity. The astute viewer or listener might say “hey, Identity Politics isn’t a religion!” For all intents and purposes it functions as one. I’m going to adopt the term “Identianity” as the religion that uses Identity Politics as its gospel.
I need to take a moment to define Identity Politics, as it’s a broadly used term. In essence, it is categorizing people into groups and pitting these groups against each other, dividing us based on some superficial surface for some pernicious political purpose. The group “identity” is often based on race, sex, or sexual orientation, but is not confined to these, as groups are formed based on real or perceived oppressions at any given time.
Identianity is not unique to modern times or modern political movements. It was the curse of caste systems, the fuel of feudalism, the scourge of slavery, the corruption of the Klan, the dark heart of tribal warfare.
The pages of history overflow with the ink of heinousness done by one group of humans to another. This is why Identity Politics, when presented as a fight for the rights of the mistreated appeals to our sense of justice. Who wouldn’t want to right all the wrongs of humanity? But we have to ask if Identity Politics is the proper tool for this tremendous task.
In functional societies, interpersonal transgressions are dealt with in an agreed-upon a system of laws and consequences. When a crime is committed, blame is assessed. The accused is determined innocent or guilty, and in the latter case punishment is prescribed. Personal transgressions though, or sins of the soul, violate higher laws and require an entirely different judicial system.
In Christianity, each individual fallible human is to blame for their own transgressions. Jesus Christ, the infallible son of God manifest in human flesh, is uniquely and importantly the innocent party. This innocence, combined with the unfathomable physical and psychological pain that he agreed to endure, allows him to mercifully make all amends in satisfying the universal demand of justice. He’s our savior in every sense of the word.
In the garden of Eden, we fall. In the garden of Gethsemane, we are caught.
In the current incarnation of Identianity, no matter the crime or the disparity, the white heterosexual male is to blame. As the apex transgressor, he is responsible for all wickedness, wrongdoings, and woes. The sins of mankind are solely the sins of the white heterosexual mankind.
Not only must this collectively stained group be silenced and purged, everything that their pervasive impurity has tainted must be decimated. Capitalism, colonialism, fossil fuels, the very notion of a nation, the nuclear family, Christianity, mathematics, classical music, art, literature. It all must fall.
In this case though, there’s no one to catch them. The white heterosexual male must shoulder the crushing weight of all the world’s wrongs. Their penance is the only payment that can be offered to satisfy the demand of justice. The debt is always growing though and will never be atoned for. Thus they must simply succumb to their fate as the perpetual target of cathartic rage.
With a burden so great, it’s no wonder that so many are sent scattering to claim disassociation, hoping against hope that there’s a way out of purgatory. Self-condemnation, virtue signaling, public confessions, writing books about their guilt and fragility, putting signs in the windows of businesses. Dabbing blood on their door frames, hoping the avenging angel of societal death passes them by.
As for the innocent party, that would be anyone that points a finger at the white heterosexual male. And the less adjacent you are, or the more “intersectional”, to use their term, the more innocence you can claim. It becomes strategically advantageous to be recognized as disadvantaged or oppressed, because it gives one a stronger moral claim in society. Along with which comes more social credit – the right to speak above others, to be believed above others, to receive more benefits.
Once the white heterosexual male has been sufficiently scapegoated and scourged however, a new fall guy will need to be appointed. The white heterosexual female is on deck. The heterosexual black male apostate likely follows, and on down the list. The fire of cultural Marxism will always need fuel to keep burning.
So we have the guilty, the innocent, and the scapegoat. But who is the savior in Identianity? Listen to any speech from a far-left politician – they’ll tell you. The government is the savior. They just need more power, more money. But these tithes are specially earmarked. They must be used for the proper partisan programs that the priests and priestesses of Identianity have in mind.
This is why you’ve seen everything become so highly politicized. In this religion, the government is exalted. All matters must be brought to the altar of politics where the supreme authorities can judge in favor of those that have lobbied their position most effectively. Citizens are mere subjects, looking upward to the state, begging to receive its blessings.
Identianity has its own evangelicals and pastors. It has its own sacraments, seminaries, and crusades. The university system in the West has been steadily infiltrated by the missionaries of Identianity over the past six decades. The converts that came out of this system have gone on to turn all of our institutions into monasteries of illiberalism. This doctrine is preached from the pulpits of mainstream media, worshipped in workplaces, coerced into corporations, and exhorted in elementary schools.
We now find ourselves at an inflection point, where we must reflect on the ramifications. How is this philosophy playing out in the world? How has it played out in the past? The fruits of Identity Politics are division, anger, resentment, contention, and ultimately some form of ethnic cleansing. It encourages people to see the worst in others. It encourages people to figure out how they can be victims. The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. It encourages people to see the best in others. It encourages people to figure out how they can be victors.
In Christianity, to say we as individuals have no sin, is to deceive ourselves. To diagnose the brokenness of the human condition one looks inward. And to heal these wounds, one looks to Christ. The heart is changed and the person is transformed from the inside out.
In Identianity, one looks to the government to heal the wounds by punishing some other group. The transformation can only happen from the outside in, and only if certain conditions are met. The enemy is always without, never within.
Jesus admonishes his followers to forgive one another 70 times 7 times. Forgiveness would be counterproductive to Identity Politics and is therefore completely excluded from the doctrine. People can only seen as part of a collective identity, and since mercy is a feature of individuality, there is also no mercy in Identianity. For the same reason, there can be no redemption.
So while Identianity takes on the veneer of religion in many regards, its system of misappropriating innocence and collectivizing blame ultimately manufactures a fraudulent and dangerous imitation. It attempts to copy the architecture but uses the wrong materials, which is why it always falls in the end, and always leads to destruction.
Before concluding, I want to address two counter arguments.
The first being that Christianity has been the cause of plenty of division, resentment, and destruction itself. While I would acknowledge that many have used religion as a pretense for personal and political motives, I’d point out that this is a corruption of the offenders and of the doctrine itself. Not only have murder, envy, and bearing false witness been officially condemned since Moses made his way down the Mount with the tablets, but Christ set forth in no uncertain terms that love for God and love for each other would henceforth and always be the way for his disciples to live.
Conversely, contention is a fundamental tenet of Identianity, of which all its ambassadors from Marx to Marcuse to Kendi would agree. Rather than “blessed are the peacemakers”, for they will be called children of God, their sermon on the mount would include “blessed are the beefmakers”, for they will be called children of the State.
The second counter argument is that Identity Politics is required because of the deep and far-reaching wounds left behind from the institutional crimes of racism in America, such as slavery and Jim Crow laws. No one argues that these weren’t great travesties. But forgotten is the fact that not everyone agreed with them in the first place. When you abolish the abolitionists you are guilty of the same erasure that you accuse the hegemony of. No present or past people, no matter how you group them, is a monolith. Even if you accepted the false premise that they were, holding present people responsible for past people’s decisions is no better than putting “colored” signs on drinking fountains. You’re spending counterfeit currency in the economy of innocence and blame.
So what’s the real currency? As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
I will never deny that many wrongs have been wrought. Or that there is still work to be done. But enmity is definitely not the remedy. Making America hate is not the way to make America great.
As Alexis De Tocqueville said “feelings and ideas are renewed, the heart enlarged, the mind expanded, only by the reciprocal actions of men one upon another.” Identianity will never facilitate this.
Identity Politics should be rejected not because it demands justice for those who have been unjustly treated, but because it demands division and corrodes confidence in each other and in individuals. It’s a colossal disservice to inseminate the mindset of victimhood and paranoia in people. To teach them that they can’t accomplish anything without the help of government, or that they shouldn’t even have ambitions in the first place because the system is against them. This is mind poisoning.
Our world is a broken one shattered into fragments of well-intentioned brutalities and unwitting imperfections and every day you and I drop one of those pieces on the grand scale of justice. Identity Politics claims that it is the hand that is heavy enough to re-balance that scale. But that misguided hand has caused nothing but disaster every time it’s touched humanity.
None of us are innocent. In one way or another, we’re all a little bit crooked. There’s only one judge and savior that can set us straight. Who paid the cost. And it’s not the State.
This is not a left or right thing, or a black and white thing. We must venerate the value every individual and resist the compulsion to categorize people by some group identity. An identity that can and always will be manipulated by those seeking to wield political power.
It was former Marxist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn whom, after spending a decade in a Soviet Gulag for criticizing Stalin in a private letter, famously formulated the truth of the matter – “the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties (nor, I would add, between races) — but right through every human heart.”
Above all, Identity Politics should be rejected because it denies this eternal truth.
Let us not make idols of identity while we pursue progress, equality, justice, mercy, goodness, and enlightenment. For the opposite of racism is not anti-racism, but righteousness.
this is for anyone that hasn’t seen an angel or a burning bush or an empty tomb for anyone that never got to touch the wounds
for anyone who was never struck down on the road to Damascus but is struck now by this road and its vastness
for anyone searching for wholeness in the ashes of brokenness
I read a blog post once where an atheist claimed that it’s the believer’s job to prove that God exists as if God would create a world and proliferate a gospel thoroughly and utterly based on faith and then make that faith meaningless by showing His face in the sky or something
and I thought why? why do we always ask to be shown a sign why should we live life like anxious bystanders always asking for a reason to join the dance instead of having the time of our lives
why do they try to make me doubt it they can’t prove love but they keep making a lot of songs about it
you know who only believes in what they already know? robots I am not a zero, or a one I am infinity I’m thankful for possibility thankful for the opportunity to learn how to see things that aren’t in the latest edition of a textbook and that won’t be erased in the next one for the wonder that moves me to do things I might not otherwise do to become what I might not otherwise become
to be on a road that I’m convinced is longer than my patience to go and see if my principles are stronger than my temptations
or else what would be the purpose would it even be worth it if there were no foggy intersections to disentangle no uncharted adventures no precarious unknowns to step out into it’s scary but those stones that form under our feet are the pedestals of testimony a test that only could have been passed through faith a testament to the test that we’re meant to take
God is not the one meant to be proven here
we are witnesses to wisdom testifiers of truth orators of the grandest of glory doubters will never know the full story and they don’t want to
I’m not saying I never have doubts but I’ve found that when I doubt my doubts when I use doubts as opportunities for building instead of catalysts for destruction is when the mountains start wilting and as the light bends over the horizon my soul arises from asylum my eyes are widened, enlightenment arrives and I receive the utmost instruction
the beautiful thing is no matter how much I come to know God is still bigger than that which means there’s always room to grow more
I’m happy with the evidence of things not seen and the substance of what I hope for because this journey is everything I was molded for
for everyone searching for wholeness in the ashes of brokenness when everything else has failed when it feels like faith is all we got left maybe that’s because faith is all we got right and if we got that we’re gonna be alright
I guess what I’m trying to say is thank you thank you for all the angels without wings thank you for all the times you burned bushes in my chest with a flame so powerful that I felt like I could sprout wings thank you for my savior that busted the tomb for gathering up all my sins and repealing them thank you for touching my wounds and healing them
thank you for not showing me your face in the sky thank you for showing your face in my life
Texas has a lot of things, but grand scenic overlooks do not appear to be one of them, at least in this recent resident’s limited experience. However, not too far beyond the clandestine corner where Texas sneaks a perpetual kiss to Arkansas lies the Ouachita National Forest. A few minutes of digital map investigation of the area a few weeks ago revealed a location that matched what I had in mind for my latest video project, “For Anyone that Hasn’t Seen an Angel”.
I surmised that a five hour drive on pavement, an extra 90 minutes on dirt, and a short hike on foot would be worth it. The vista did not disappoint. Rolling shades of green stretched as far as the eye could see. A rocky ledge seemingly positioned by God himself provided not only optimal viewing, but the perfect perch for a person to recite a poem. And I was alone. No fellow landscape lovers to bargain with over sharing the space. No park rangers to ask if I had a filming permit.
It was windy though, cloudier and colder than the Weather app had promised. I unpacked my gear, assembled my camera rig, and instructed my tripod on where to stand to properly capture the view, the sky, and me, without falling off the cliff. I did the same for my little drone, except for the cliff part – its instructions were instead to not run into it, nor venture too far away that it couldn’t find its way home.
With ears and fingers turning redder as the sun valiantly fought through breaks in a murky firmament on its way down, I filmed what I could. It’s difficult to be on both sides of the camera. There are several technical requirements on the cinematography side, the mismanagement of any one of which can render footage useless. Then there’s the performance side – remembering all the words, saying them at exactly the right time to sync up properly with how I recorded them back in the studio, and generally trying not to look terrible in doing so.
I quickly ran out of light trying to juggle both roles. To wrap up, I decided to film a time-lapse of the sunset, which meant another hour and a half in the cold. I found a rock face to huddle under and thought of those that might have huddled there hundreds of years ago when the same wind blew through. With the heavens empty of light, I’d now have to pack up and hike down an unfamiliar mountain by myself in the kind of darkness that can only be pitched by remote wilderness. I did have the flashlight on my iPhone – I imagined it just powerful enough to illuminate the eyes of a hungry mountain lion. Or the blade of a crazed backwoods machete murderer. I reckoned that my tripod would have to be my defense, but also reckoned that it wouldn’t be a match for either foe.
The panic of losing the trail once for several minutes proved to be my most perilous trial on the way down. I made it back to my car and was relieved an hour and and half later to finally see asphalt again, along with the occasional set of indifferent but reassuring white eyes speeding by in a light fog.
Looking at the footage the next morning I saw what I already knew – it wasn’t good. Things were misframed and out of focus. The sky was not friendly enough for the subject matter. The cold temperatures and wind were apparent and it was not the vibe I was looking for.
Fortunately though, my wife had wanted to see Arkansas too. And my kids are always up for adding to their “states I’ve been to” lists. So they drove separately and we met up in a town called Hot Springs, which is apparently more famous for early 20th century gambling and gangsters than geysers. I told my wife about my production troubles and we discussed how she might be able to help. That afternoon we headed back into the high woodlands.
Though I wouldn’t necessarily recommend Forest Road 55 to anyone with a minivan, her Odyssey successfully completed the odyssey up to the lookout. The terminal hike was a bit more laborious with the extra equipment necessary to ameliorate three children, including carrying one of them. But at the top the wind was calm and the sun was shining. After briefly savoring the view, we set the kids up with some sleeping bags, snacks, and a previously downloaded movie on my laptop.
As they learned how to train a dragon, I trained my wife on a few quick camera tips. But we didn’t have long. Golden hour was upon us and we would have at most 90 minutes to execute the shoot.
She started rolling, one eye on the camera monitor, and one eye on the kids’ camp to make sure the two-year-old didn’t get up and wander toward the cliff’s edge. I said my piece a few times from a few different angles. I positioned the drone against the sky and signaled when she should have it fly. Soon enough the two-year old was restlessly wandering into shots and the sun was bidding farewell, its disciplined duty fulfilled for another day. We packed up in the remaining photons that it tossed softly our way, retraced our path back down through the trees, and safely secured the kids in their seatbelts for the kind of sweet slumber that only comes in a car ride home from the mountains.
The footage was better this time, and so was the company. I’m thankful for a family to roam with through these forests and deserts and mountains, and with whom to share the views. Especially for a wife that supports my endeavors. I hope you enjoy her videographer debut. Some shots were still not perfectly in focus (my fault, not hers), and that’s okay. We did our best with what we had. This life is not always perfectly in focus, and that’s kind of the point of the video.
I’m also thankful for a Creator that painted these beautiful murals that we get to move through. For the sun he set in the sky to light the day, and for the son he set in our lives to light the way.
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New video poem “For Anyone that Hasn’t Seen an Angel” coming May 2.
In the language of playing cards, the founding of America was like being dealt three of a kind when the best hand that history had ever seen was king high.
Since then, we’ve had to set some mistakes straight and flush some loathsome practices that didn’t adhere to the uniquely lofty standards that the country had laid out for itself.
We put it all on the table.
Through battles of blood, centuries of sweat and triumphs of tears, America became a full house.
Still not the perfect hand, but pretty dang good. And by being a model for the rest of the world – a beacon of freedom over dark oceans of tyrannical dominion, countless millions have had their hands improved too.
Now, sure that they can do better, a growing faction in this country believes that if we would just fold this hand that we’ve worked so hard to construct – if we would just burn it all to the ground, what’s sure to be dealt next is a royal flush.
This of course is the worldview of those that have never viewed the world. The communal dream of all those oblivious to the nightmares wrought by their ideological ancestors. The delusion of all those willing to wager that with the proper amount of government coercion and political correctness we can surely perfect human nature.
This is the single-mindedness that arises when roasting reason over the glowing embers of the enlightenment.
This is the wisdom of burning books instead of reading them.
This is the sagacity of sanctioning despots instead of defeating them.
This is the new normal when our elite overlords form all the accepted aphorisms, and hoards of corporations just keep repeating them.
This is building back better, when the fact is it’s only better for the globalists, big technocrats, and socialists.
This is living by lies instead of calling their bluff.
This is reprogramming with the wrong code This is what progress looks like when you’re hellbent on making it but you’re on the wrong road.
This is trying to roll a thirteen with a pair of dice. Forgetting again, that there are no round trip tickets to a fool’s paradise.
This is the vision of blind loyalty to ideologues. The oh-so-wise paradigm of eviscerating organized religion but glorifying organized crime.
This is the fallacy of betting on bureaucracy you can’t redistribute morality especially when you don’t have any to offer see this is just playing the same game with a different dealer.
Gambling on the gambit that we are not standing on the shoulders of giants but levitating on the precipice of collectivist bliss.
If they understood history, they’d understand that the odds are infinitely long when you try to immanentize the eschaton.
In other words Utopia is not in these cards.
So about that – place your wagers carefully on the next hand because when it’s revealed I bet you’re going to want the full house back.
Sundown. October 1st, 1943 The secret police of Nazi Germany – aka the Gestapo began slithering through the streets of Denmark their seething jaws agape to seize all the Jews in their wake to swallow them whole and force them toward their forlorn fate in concentration camps but to their consternation despite having the names and addresses of every Jew in town their prey was nowhere to be found
Because two days prior Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz, a German diplomat had tipped off the leader of the Jewish community who spread the word to the rabbis who spread the word to their congregations and over the next 48 hours schools, businesses, hospitals churches of all denominations persons of all occupations became alibis together they devised a makeshift network of escape routes and hurriedly funneled the Jews to the coast and onto boats and to freedom over 7500 souls made it across the sea to asylum in Sweden
Some 95% were saved from the Holocaust
What made the Danes do what so many others didn’t?
well, for them the answer to the “Jewish question” was that there was no question from what they could surmise people were people no amount of politics and propaganda could persuade them otherwise
the resistance wasn’t against Hitler it wasn’t against Germany or the Axis
the resistance was refusing to adapt to the practice of otherizing resisting the all-too-ubiquitous urge to purge
that slithering snake didn’t die in a bunker under Berlin in 1945 it’s alive everywhere you see someone drawing a line around a group and blaming them
the resistance is not woke-ism it’s not Trumpism it’s not progressivism it’s not conservatism or any ism
in a world of carefully concocted narratives and caricature crafting where race rousing vultures circle above the cadavers of cancel culture where the technocracy makes its hay by making algorithms that make us hate the resistance is refusing to take the bait
refusing to be divided and conquered
if the Gestapo came to your door and said where are the democrats? where are the republicans? give us the Christians give us the atheists we’re here for the black people we’re here for the white people
dear viewer if you would point and say there they are – take them if you would make degrading hashtags about them or take to Facebook or flock to TikTok and berate them if you would put them on lists and castigate them no matter the group being pursued if you wouldn’t help them escape then you might have been on the side of history that you always thought you never would have partaken in and history is here to find out
there were those that were exposed to this resistance that was shown by the Danes and they actually changed with just a glance into the courageous, sacred eye of the human spirit Nazi sympathizers found their ideology hard to justify they realized that what they had been sold was a lie
they became rejuvenated they no longer believed in the extermination of a whole people they were no longer deceived by the evil of dehumanization
The last television series I watched was LOST, which aired its season finale way back in 2010. It was a remarkably well-produced sci-fi action drama about plane crash survivors on a mysterious island, most well-known for its cryptic mythology and puzzling paradoxes. The characters were probed by smoke monsters, infiltrated by hostile inhabitants, and swept up in supernatural synchronicities.
The island was rife with ruins, mystic healing powers, and electromagnetic energy that facilitated time travel and spatial disposition. A specific sequence of numbers frequently appeared, implying some sort of consequential code that would unlock understanding and make it all make sense.
However, as the series began to draw to a close, the gap between questions and answers continued to widen. And for all of its mind-bending plot twists and compelling cliffhangers, it became increasingly apparent that in the end, the audience would be ones left hanging.
I wanted resolution. I wanted to know how all these pieces of the puzzle fit together. In short, I wanted it all to mean something.
When it didn’t, it left me feeling empty and deceived.
I’ve since wondered why this broken promise of meaning bothered me so much. TV shows aren’t lawfully required to explain themselves. Holding my attention for six years – 121 episodes, was perhaps proof that they upheld their end of the bargain between entertainment producer and entertained consumer.
But the question of meaning has haunted humans since they’ve been able to formulate thoughts. You can search for the meaning of life on the internet and go down thousands of rabbit holes. Most of the names we know from history, if not conquerors, are philosophers. Countless thinkers have put pen to paper, or parchment, or papyrus, pondering and positing why we’re here and what we should do while we’re here.
It would seem that we are wired for meaning. We light up when we are connected to something meaningful. But when that meaning is taken away, like when a battery is taken out of an electrical circuit, or when we break the connection somehow, our light fades. We become dim and dark and lonely.
LOST did a masterful job wiring us up. They spun a splendid web of connections, but ultimately left us without a battery to power the circuit.
The modern philosophies of man do the same. We are often flat-out told that there is no grand meaning to life. There never was. We’re just temporarily animated stardust, so make up whatever meaning you need to get you through the day. Change it if necessary. There’s no such thing as objective truth or meaning that we can all ascribe to.
Even the tried and true sources of meaning that we’ve esteemed in the past are facing extinction. Young people are admonished: You’re crazy to believe in God. Or to believe in anything. Or commit to anything. Your country is evil. Your past is deplorable. Marriage and children are negligible at best, and a great burden at worst. Cradles and kitchens are prisons. There’s nothing special about humans. In fact, we’re biohazards. We’re cancers to the planet.
It’s no wonder we are dark and lonely. No wonder that anxiety and suicide are rising. It’s no wonder that we’re likely the most depressed generation ever, even though we live in the time of most abundance. We are starving to death, with our stomachs full. Endlessly fed, but never nourished.
We are vintage Ferraris sidled up to electronic charging stations gasping for fuel
Sensing this hunger and lack of connection to meaning, ideologues will come along and offer hacks to short-circuit or bypass the problem. Those regarded as important and influential will extol the choice certainties of political party, popular culture, and identity groups. And they’ll do so using undeniable slogans.
But these are short-circuits and long cons. When current gathers together and travels along an unintended path in a circuit, the result is always explosions and fire. And by the time the forgery is exposed, the engineers are long gone.
So how do we find real, lasting meaning that won’t leave us deceived and charred in the end?
First, we should define what meaning is. For something to be meaningful, it has to have a purpose, and it has to have significance. A hammer’s purpose is to pound nails, but it probably doesn’t have much significance. A family heirloom has significance, but probably not much purpose. But we’re not interested in material items here. How can a person have purpose? How can a person have significance?
We know it’s not enough to simply exist. Even if housed and fed and kept safe, it’s not enough for us. We have to feel like we’re making a difference to someone or to some greater good beyond ourselves.
One way to do that is to work. Having someone else rely on us to get a job done gives us purpose. Having someone else pay us to do something makes us feel valued. We can also see this as contributing to society. Anyone who’s ever been part of settling a new town or building a hospital or starting a non-profit knows that everyone involved has to do their part. They have to work together to make something. There’s purpose in the end result, but everyone has found purpose in the work required to get there. And they’ve most likely learned a great deal along the way.
In times past, we’ve not had much choice but to work. If we didn’t work, we didn’t eat. It was pretty simple. Purpose found us before we could sit complacently enough to contemplate it.
Today, resting in the belly of technology there seems to be an aversion to work. Especially work that requires actual “work”. We see labor as beneath us and leave as much of it as we can to those we feel somehow superior to. But as I see the atrophy of dying towns across the country where work has become unavailable, I can’t help but also see the atrophy of our souls when we unavail ourselves to work.
We can also find purpose in family and friendship. In taking care of other people. In taking on responsibility, which by definition, gives us purpose, because we are responsible for someone else.
But there’s more. Shouldering responsibility also begets love. Everyone yearns to be loved in a real and lasting way, but that can only happen when someone else looks outside of themselves, and takes the formidable but fruitful next step – which is to give up part of themselves. To sacrifice.
Just like we’ve become averse to work, I think we’ve become averse to sacrifice. This generation hasn’t had to fight any major wars. We have our food brought to our doors. Generations before sacrificed for their posterity. Now, we tend more toward sacrificing our posterity for ourselves. Many have been fooled into believing that their life outcomes will be measured by their life incomes, only to find themselves completely broke in the end. Another short-circuit. Another long con.
This concept of sacrifice is crucial. It deserves a deeper look.
Jordan Peterson talks about this in his book “12 Rules for Life”, specifically in the chapter aptly titled “Do what is meaningful, not what is expedient”. He talks about how humans have learned to share with each other. In an ancient context, one tribe shares meat from a successful hunt with another tribe, making a deal that the favor will be returned at a future date, which is mutually beneficial to both tribes. But we’ve also learned that we can obtain something better for ourselves in the future by giving up something of value in the present. We’ve learned how to not eat all of our food at once. Or to not spend all of our money at once. It’s tempting, when you get money, to just buy whatever you can. But it’s better to save what you can, to put it in some kind of account that will earn more money for you in the future. So in a sense we’ve learned how to make a deal with our future selves.
This deal can only happen by sacrificing. By giving up something expedient for something more lasting – more meaningful. For our future selves, or our present family, our friends, our neighbors, or even strangers.
It’s not easy. Admittedly I’m not great at this. By default I’m inwardly focused. But I continue to find that when I step outside of myself, and sacrifice, I feel better. I’m able to help others feel better. I’m more connected. Life has more meaning.
I think of mothers. The sacrifice of bearing children, nurturing them, helping them grow and learn, helping them through all their pain and sorrows, celebrating their victories with them, and then, sacrificing them to the world. But they’ve participated in the most divine endeavor possible as humans – the creation and sustaining of another life. They’ve chosen not to do what is expedient, and instead, by giving up part of themselves they’ve connected their soul to another in the most meaningful way possible.
I think of Mary’s sacrifice. How she had to endure in excruciating silence as her son turned the world’s greatest tragedy into its greatest triumph.
I think of Christ’s own sacrifice. How it would have been far more expedient for him to pass the cup. Far more expedient to succumb to the natural human desire to avoid pain and suffering. A physical, spiritual, and emotional suffering that cut so deep that it pierced eternity. The ultimate sacrifice.
From Abel to Abraham, Peter to Paul, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more prevalent concept in scripture than sacrifice and its inseparable companion – service.
I have to think there’s a reason for this. I don’t think it a coincidence that those that think of themselves the least are the most content, the most fulfilled.
But what if this concept goes even further? What if this life is about sacrificing and sharing with our future life, beyond the grave? What if the deals we make with ourselves are not just of temporal benefit, but spiritual?
After all, if heaven has the best interest rates laying up our treasures there would rate as our best interest
What if these afflictions are momentary and at the end of this chapter of the story we find that these sacrifices have worked for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory?
I wonder if the apostle Paul and the psychologist Peterson would agree that doing what is expedient is being carnally minded and doing what is meaningful is being spiritually minded and that only the latter can bring life and peace
This brings me to the other important part of meaning – significance. If the atheists are correct, even the grandest of man’s purposes will meet their expiration date. We will perish. Our families will perish. Our work and our sacrifices will perish. Our organizations will perish. Our good deeds and great novels will perish. The Earth itself will perish when the Sun gets hungry enough. Why not turn to nihilism if this is all for naught?
History is twisted and incomplete. But one thing we seem to agree on is that as far back as we can see our ancestors, we can see that they’ve had some sense of a Being greater than themselves. One could argue that humans have always made up gods to give significance to their lives. I think it at least as likely that God made humans with an intuition of His significance.
What if the post-modernists are wrong? What if there really is a Grand Narrative, and we’ve known it all along?
If we are in fact offspring of God – if the promise of eternal life spoken of by Jesus of Nazareth is true, then all of our purposes are given eternal life too. What we do actually matters.
Our causes matter. Our humanity matters. Our families matter. What happens in cradles and kitchens turns out to be infinitely more important than what happens in boardrooms and congresses. All of our efforts spent in searching for truth, learning to control our impulses, and becoming attentive to the plight of others is not perishable, but permanent.
Not only that, being children of God gives us an identity. Not one of the earthly identities that we assign ourselves that can often be divisive, exclusionary, and contradictory, but a divine identity that is uniting, inclusive, and complete. An identity that will always encourage us to build rather than destroy. To look upward rather than downward. To do good, rather than just mean well.
Not only does it change how we see ourselves, it changes how we see each other. Our brothers and sisters become vistas to be explored rather than wastelands to be ignored. We’re more implored to see the good in people. To see them how God sees them. And to see each other as equals.
This divine doctrine was revolutionary when it was introduced to a world that had only known stratified humanism. It shattered all previously well-accepted maxims and elevated all souls to the maximum – equally magnificent before God. It rendered caste systems and slavery and sultans as paltry products of vain imaginations. We forget that those were norms, not exceptions. To grasp the significance of this decree is to grasp the significance of our being.
I would argue that the main purpose of Jesus’s ministry was to show us how significant we are. To invite us to see ourselves in the Grand Narrative. To step into it, and live it. Not just to think of it as a possible philosophy that explains our longing of belonging.
When He fed the multitudes with the 2 fish and 5 loaves, he wasn’t just feeding the hungry droves. He was showing that the sustenance he provides is bountiful and limitless. That when we discover this true meaning, it will multiply. He is the life-giving battery in our circuits – if we stay connected to Him the light within us will grow brighter and brighter. We can finally be fulfilled and settled and satisfied.
When he washed the feet of his disciples, he was exemplifying sacrifice and service. Saying, I know it may not look like it, but this is the way to happiness and purpose. Live as I’ve shown you and you will no longer gasp for fuel.
As I mentioned in a previous episode, there’s the simple utility of a piano as the physical sum of its mechanical parts, or as a collection of atoms stuck together in certain ways. But the real purpose of a piano isn’t revealed until a talented pianist comes along and plays it. It comes to life and becomes far more than the sum of its parts.
Whether one believes in God or not, living life as though we are far more than the sum of our parts, and acting as though there’s meaning above and outside of our own personal desires and flaws results in a significantly higher quality of life than could be achieved even if we were 100% efficient at living only for ourselves.
So, what is the meaning of life?
To answer that, we must first listen to the voice that tells that is there IS meaning to this life. The fact that meaning is so important to us, the fact that we keep asking this question should tell us something.
We were created to seek meaning. At the same time, the breadth of our knowledge is humbly incomplete. We can’t know everything, but to this beautifully perplexing position we find ourselves in, awe and wonder are the appropriate responses. We should lean into them.
We should seek purpose. Rather than abandoning the timeworn and tested tenets of faith, family, work, and sacrifice, we need to rekindle them. Our civilization may be modern, but our condition is ancient, and perpetual.
We should seek to grasp our significance, and fathom whatever we can from where we currently stand. Even if the waters we navigate are unsettled, persistently peering out over them is certainly the best way to discover the promised land.
As we surrender the self-centered story and enter the grand narrative of glory, our quest for meaning will finally come into focus. Purpose, significance, and identity will be revealed.
These transcendent revelations will make four-toed statues and time traveling islands seem like child’s play. We will not be shipwrecked, or plane-crashed, but brought home and made complete. Joy will abound.
In October 2020, from this desk, in front of this camera, I said:
“look at how the big tech companies have formed battalions with the mainstream media you’ve seen the double standards the silencing, the shadowbanning the Orwelian finaggling of language the skewing of search results the censorship the false narratives the mass manipulation of reality you’ve seen the madness of the mobs the captains of corporations with their smoke grenades flanked by Hollywood and SJWs and their woke brigades”
I was told that this was a right-wing conspiracy theory. I was just being paranoid. None of that stuff is really happening. Nobody is being censored for their political beliefs. They only get censored for hate speech. The mainstream media isn’t part of some big ruse. They just honestly and objectively report the news. Our internet overlords would never contort and control the flow of information.
On February 4th, 2021, TIME Magazine published an article called “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election”. Perhaps a more apt title would have been “The Wizard Pulls Back His Own Curtain”. Turns out there really was “an informal alliance between left-wing activists and business titans”. There really was a “well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information.”
It was confirmed that there were at least 400 planned “demonstrations” for the night of the election, and this network of street mobs was ready to be deployed on American cities at the push of a button, in case not enough people tapped the “correct” button at the ballot box.
It was confirmed that George Floyd, BLM, and other Social Justice organizations were coopted to push the agenda. It’s not that the cabal cared more about the marginalized as one might hope, it’s just that they saw more opportunity in the margins to siphon votes.
It was confirmed that the heads of Facebook and Twitter held private dinners where activists convinced them of what they needed to do, which is why you saw so much censorship and control of what you could share and see, and what you were allowed to believe was true.
It was confirmed that racial justice firebrands brokered a deal with corporations – because burning more businesses is bad for profits. That’s why you saw every big company fall in line, and repeat the same rhetoric time after time.
Everything I’ve stated here is straight from the article. This is their own attestation, and this is not some so-called right-wing conspiracy publication. In their own words, there was literally a conspiracy. A secret combination.
But you might say, “they only did this to ensure the election would be free and fair.” They were simply “saving our democracy”.
But they failed to hide the hypocrisy.
The Kingpin admitted that victory to him would not be a free and fair election, but a Biden win.
So how safe do you feel about your democracy? How safe do you feel knowing that a well-funded cabal of left-wing activists, business titans, mainstream media moguls, and big technocrats will now decide every election?
How safe do you feel about your freedom of speech? Your freedom of anything?
I finally realized that this was never about Trump being a racist or a homophobe or any other “ist” or “phobe”. It was about him being a fly in the ointment. A glitch in the matrix. A threat to all those that sit upon thrones.
After the civil war, Abraham Lincoln said that the task before this nation was to have a new birth of freedom, under God. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people that shall not perish from the earth.
Has anybody seen it? All I see is a people governed by the elite for the elite, under the god of what they say is good for us to believe. Whatever keeps us from seeing the forest for the trees.
I will not live on my knees. I will not live by lies. I will speak for freedom.
because to put in bluntly it’s not Trump that I want back, it’s my country
what world is this
where beasts and evil roam
where moth corrupt
and we walk alone
through crowds gone mad
as vagrants scorned
where drought and dread and dust doth blow
and it just doesn’t feel… like home
we press on through the wretchedness
across the valley of the shadow of death and its
all we can manage
to slosh through the sickness
and crawl through calamity
we are all witness to the fall
what humanity is this
that the sky would forsake with such (fury in) hues of hot gold
these bodies baking and burning
shaking and swerving
as we make this journey in shoes with lost soles
behold
what oasis is this
where we can kneel and taste
of water so pure
and partake of bread
that we will never hunger
and find comfort in our salvation made sure
what truth is this
that would come forth to relieve us
amidst all that would deceive us
what warrior is this
that came through the gallows
victorious
against all that would defeat us
what light is this
so bright and glorious
what commandment is this?
love God and my neighbor
but also my enemies that curse me
what medicine is this
that purges me of my own pestilence
that nourishes me in my negligence
that encourages me in adversity
and emerges in emergency
and furnishes me with breath in my breathlessness
whose death is my deathlessness
and whose rise is my righteousness
what child, what child, what child is this
in a world whose heart would harden us
where we would become lost
in the middle and the margins of
what savior is this
so sweet and marvelous
who would believe from the start and
agree to embark for us
who would grieve at how hard it was
but still kneel and (soak) the scars for us
whose pleading would pardon us
whose bleeding in the garden would
be the healing of every broken part of us
hail, hail for the Word made flesh
whose sentence cemented us in the story
and whose paragraphs
would be the parallax that let heaven’s glory merge with our quest
for the verve in our chest
for eternity’s best
they impaled with nails
and pierced with spears
for the break in the veil
we cheer Him with tears
we’re certainly blessed
for no matter what the world thinks might be king
this, THIS is Christ the King
whom shepherds guard and angels sing
praise be to the babe
the son of Mary
the son of God
that sacred fateful morn
joy, joy for Christ was born
and we are saved
I wasn’t planning on making a Christmas video this year but felt prompted over the past few weeks given how difficult this year has been. I’m working with friend and several-time collaborator Kimberly StarKey aka The Rogue Pianist (and others) on a new piece in the vein of our previous Christmas videos Little Drummer Boy and Mary Did You Know.
This year’s video will look a little different, but we’re hoping to capture the same spirit within the crazy constraints of 2020. Watch for the premiere December 20th.
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