Thanks for sticking with me. Joani, thanks for your comment yesterday . I couldn’t get in to reply, I apologize. I think it is a great question. So everyone doesn’t have to go back it was “why can one evil person run roughshod over a country? Shouldn’t good people be able to overcome him? “ I think we are back to free will. Putin used free will in a corrupt system to cause terrible harm but let’s face it he has help. I do think good people banding together WILL eventually stop him. I really do appreciate the comment. If you think I should post less so we can discuss more let me know. I know others are having these thoughts.
For today Thomas has made the voyage from England to the US and he has been examining why he is unhappy. He has decided capitalism is the reason so naturally he has now decided to become a communist. He writes,
So now, when the time came for me to take spiritual stock of myself, it was natural that I should do so by projecting my whole spiritual condition into the sphere of economic history and the class struggle. In other words, the conclusion I came to was that it was not so much I myself that was to blame for my unhappiness, but the society in which I lived. Pg 133
How often, I thought, do I look for excuses and scapegoats rather than confronting the truth about myself? It is so easy to blame others or circumstances rather than admit I was wrong or that there are areas in my life that need work. Humility is hard!
He then goes on to talk about the evils of capitalism and why he was attracted to communism. He goes on to state that he readily saw the evils of capitalism but didn't see that communism really didn't have any answers to the problems of man's greed and selfishness. But one section on capitalism caught my eye. I would substitute materialism which Thomas actually does several sentences earlier:
We live in a society whose whole policy is to excite every nerve in the human body and keep it at the highest pitch of artificial tension, to strain every human desire to the limit and to create as many new desires and synthetic passions as possible, in order to cater to them with products of our factories and printing presses and movie studios and all the rest. pg 133
And this was published in 1948! What would Thomas think of tic tok and instagram and Iphones? We have gotten almost perfect in "exciting every nerve in the human body" 24/7. Now I am not anti-technology. I am blogging and you are reading this over the internet. Remember, all things are created for good but man can choose to use them to either bring the world closer to God or to move the world away from God. What if every songwriter, scriptwriter and advertiser thought: is my song, show or product going to bring people closer to God or push them away? I don't mean to imply everything has to be overtly religious; entertainment and joy are good and are gifts from God. But what morals do shows reveal today? Sorry for the rant but our society scares me. I think it makes it hard to live a Christian or any type of religious life.
My prayer for today Keep me on your path Lord and catch me when I fall. Help me to live in the world and to see all it's glory without becoming chained to it.
Pax
Joe
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