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January 01, 2005
Welcome to 2005
I'll start by wishing you all a blessed and successful year ahead; I hope that the Lord gives you the grace and help you need to achieve whatever you are destined to achieve in the coming year.
Now I shall probably be called a curmudgeon for this, but, much as I enjoyed the spectacular fire works displays shown on the TV, and the parties to celebrate the close of one year and the start of the next, it occurred to me that our political masters and leaders are everywhere adopting the same tactics as the rulers of Rome in the corrupt and closing days of that Empire. Give the people spectacles, big circusses, more lions fighting gladiators, keep them drunk on the spectacle and they won't notice the steady erosion of personal freedom, rising taxation, increasing inequality of wages and wealth - in short they won't notice they're being robbed blind!
I listened to the statistics being bandied about by breathless announcers as more and more spectacular displays soared, roared, or blasted into the skies. London's display used 3 tons of fireworks, Edinburgh's 8 tons, Sydney's of the order of 5 tons. Why is this so important, surely it's the effect and the spectacle that is what counts, not the weight? Are we fighting some sea battle? There, certainly, the weight of shot being fired, and the rate of fire, was what won or lost a fight, surely this is less true of a fireworks display?
It strikes me that, with the increasing decline of any form of spiritual anchorage among the populace, the only alternative is the spectacle, hence the increasing "star" status of footballers who can barely string together three words consequtively, "Pop" stars who self destruct amid wealth, drugs, and general excess, and self-seeking politicians and bureaucrats who use these "stars" shamelessly to promote their own careers. With no spiritual dimension to our lives we become shallow, self obsessed, and depressingly easy to herd into whatever the latest "moral" restriction is. "All we like sheep", is becoming depressingly ever more apparent.
No, I haven't got a hangover, and no, I am not a manic depressive, but the cycle of history is pointing in only one direction when the political classes feel the need to make a huge spectacle out of a totally irrelevant point in a calendar. This "celebration" has its origins in the Puritan Protestant attempt to deconstruct the great Christian feasts celebrated by Catholics. I wonder if what their effiorts have produced gives them pride and pleasure now?
Today is the Feast of the Naming and Circumcision of Jesus, perhaps we should mark that a little more clearly, instead! As Simeon the elderly Priest is reported to have said;
"Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace: according to thy word.
For mine eyes have seen: thy salvation,
Which thou hast prepared: before the face of all people;
To be a light to lighten the Gentiles: and to be the glory of thy people Israel."
Happy new year to you all.
Posted by The Gray Monk at January 1, 2005 12:20 PM
Comments
I have a friend who just got back from Wales seeing his mother. She needs a triple bypass and the NHS has deemed that she will die before they could fit her in for a operation, since there is 500K waiting for a operation. So instead of putting her on the list and hoping for the best, the NHS has pulled her off it. I am guessing to make their numbers look good. He has come back to work very pissed off at his native land. THe one thing he said was that Britian is broke, but the toadies in London are hiding that fact from everyone, is this true?
p.s. happy hogmanay
Posted by: skipjack at January 1, 2005 04:26 PM