Rebuilding a civilization one brick and one soul at a time...

I am not reading the news much. It's too glum. The "party line" is that the world sucks. When things get better, and they will, Barack Obama will become, at least on television, the greatest president since FDR. In 2012, if you are against President Obama, it will be because you are a racist and a reactionary who wants to turn back the clock not to the 1990s Silicon Valley, but to 1960s Birmingham or 1930s Chicago. I can only hope that the mainstream media's voice is largely silenced by the economic crisis, but that probably is too much to ask.



Recent writings by Peggy Noonan remind me that some holy orders, in particular, the Benedictines, are built not for the way the world should work, but the way it does, that is, it collapses in gloom, panic, recession, and war. The Benedictines do what they do century by century. They rebuilt Europe after A.D. 476, and if necessary, they will rebuilt the entire world, one soul and one brick at a time.

Here are some of Noonan's comments today:

'Perhaps the biggest factor behind the new pessimism is the knowledge that the crisis is not only economic but political, that we'll have to change both cultures, economic and political, to turn the mess around. That's a tall order, and won't happen quickly. One thing for sure: Our political leaders for at least a decade, really more, have by and large been men and women who had fortunate lives, who always seemed to expect nice things to happen and happiness to occur. And so they could overspend, overcommit and overextend the military, and it would all turn out fine. They claimed to be quintessentially optimistic, but it was a cheap optimism, based more on sunny personal experience than any particular faith, and void of an understanding of how dark and gritty life can be, and has been for most of human history.'

Here is a link to the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia.