Fellow rebels,

It is all coming to a head.

As we watch the news, that’s how it feels, anyway.

And that’s how it’s always felt, if you believe what people have written in the past.

Humans have always thought the end was nigh.

Because how could this square balanced on a triangle that we call civilization possibly last one more day?

But then tomorrow always comes. And tomorrows always have.

Today was tomorrow yesterday, you know.

“Peace in the middle east!”

“The rapture is coming!”

“WWIII starting soon!”

So what?

What are we going to do about it?

Those of us who read the headlines instead of having them written about us…

What are we to do?

I spend a lot of my time thinking about this.

I am a husband, a father, and the sole breadwinner for my household so I feel I must.

But I’ve noticed an interesting pattern of late.

The less I concern myself with the matters of the world at large, the more I am able to care for my small corner of it.

This seems obvious, I’m sure.

And maybe it is.

But there is a difference between knowing something in the intellectual sense, and imbibing it so deeply that it becomes a literal part of you.

That is what’s happened to me.

I went from being a headline reader to a life liver.

Now instead of reading about forces so enormous they shrink my spirit, I choose instead to focus on the tiny actions I can take to move the needle for my family.

Today that looks like sanding the bottom of the door to our bedroom so it closes more smoothly (or closes at all) and installing a new dual stage water filter for our house that runs exclusively off rainwater.

Small improvements. But I am just a small human with a small budget living a small life in my small house with my small family.

A small improvement, therefore, is appropriate.

I wonder sometimes what the world might look like if this were the sincere approach of the majority.

I think things would mellow out quite a lot.

If we viewed ourselves as stewards of the lives given to us rather than masters of our own destiny, would we care more tenderly for the people and things that came across our path?

Probably.

Alas, we live in the era of the sovereign individual.

Each man the captain of his fate, and each woman a “boss babe”.

We erect shrines in our honor and call them man-caves and she-sheds.

Never stopping to think how silly and infantile these shacks are when compared to the self-sacrificial work of stonemasons who spent their lives shaping churches that will stand as a testament to divine beauty for a thousand years.

As a byproduct, such a life also produces discipleship of the next generation as father teaches son a trade that will provide for the family into the future and continue a legacy of encasing beauty in the proud facade of stone.

Western man has forgotten the dignity of such a life.

Sacrifice provides meaning.

Meaning produces depth.

Depth reveals beauty.

And it all demands patience.

We temporal humans are so lacking in patience.

We think it all must be completed now and in so doing accomplish nothing.

We flit from one half-completed task to another, and instead of building ourselves a firm foundation from which to launch, produce an ocean of chaos that swallows us before we can reach escape velocity.

I suppose my point in all of this is that the only answer I’ve found as a suitable response to the constant malignant droning of the news cycle is to chip away at ordering and beautifying my small corner of the world.

My property, my home, and my family are a faithful reflection of my inner state.

When things are in their proper place within, so are the things without.

May we all seek to rightly order that which the Lord has placed under our care - not as an expression of our dominating will, but as an extension of the orderly beauty transmitted by the Spirit of God through us.

Proverbs 3: 13-15, “Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her.”

More soon,

-- John

May the Lord bless you and keep you, and make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

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God bless.