When The Old Pillars of Civilization Are Razed

Photo by Who’s Denilo ? on Unsplash.

So much foolishness
Passes for wisdom these days.
The murder of innocents arises now
Out of a growing dearth of innocence.
Self-contradiction and rationalization
Have replaced both the simple and the great truths.
Language no longer bears
The consistent weight of meaning,
Having been distorted by ideology.
And the eternal, unchanging wisdoms
Of the natural law are witlessly being replaced
By incomprehensible babble and soul-withering chaos.

Glory and praise, the wonder of child-like humility,
Are forced aside by the screeching gods of presumption.
Sophist philosophies and skeptical cynicism reigns,
And infidelity has become a sacrament
Offered to the little gods of sensuality,
While marriage and family have been
Cast upon the “ash heap of history”
In the minds of the reigning, relativist herds.

Why, then, are we surprised by the
Razed ruins of Civilization all around us,
That are slowly being replaced by
The fragile, finite, and flimsy edifices of skepticism
And the unbridled passions of legions
Of winsome and wanton wastrels
Whose selfish desires and demands are
Turning all that was once lovely and good
Into a meaningless, drought-stricken wasteland
That swallows all that was once known to be
Good, True, Beautiful, and Just,
Into the self-obsessed, lusty, and gluttonous bellies
Of the self-identified warriors of “wokedom”?

Where there is no love for anything,
No faith of any substance,
No universally recognized values, or
Where the old certainties of tradition
Have been denied, dis-used, and destroyed,
Can there be any hope for the peace and justice
That still moves us at our deepest levels?

Certainly not when those levels are no longer plumbed.
Not when the selfless virtues called
Courage, love, and righteousness,
Have been replaced by the impish craftiness
And the haughty willfulness of the “It’s all about Me” Age.

But the old virtues do not die,
For they are, in reality, eternal.
Though the hordes of skeptics and cynics
Believe, with absolute certainty, that
They can overcome, even do away with them,
The virtues have a way of coming back
When the ruins and the wastelands
Finally awaken even the proudest of us
To the deadly, self-destructive consequences of our pride.

Hope is eternal! In the end the old truths
Will be resurrected through love.
The oldest truth of all is infinitely alive;
Amor vincit omnia!
Love conquers all!
Yes, even the foolish and childish
Presumptions of the ego will, in the end,
Fall humbly and joyfully under Love's Divine power.