Time Without The Timeless

Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid* apathy with no concentration /

Men's curiosity searches past and future
And clings to that dimension. But to apprehend
The point of intersection of the timeless
With time, is an occupation for the saint—

-TS Eliot, The Four Quartets

Once a person or culture rejects any belief in the transcendent and the eternal and all that remains is the material, all that’s left is despair or its weakling twin sister, boredom. If there is no eternal Creator and Father of us all, no timeless moments within time, then there is no transcendent purpose or meaning to life and history. All we have, then, as the French philosopher Camus saw, is absurdity and despair. “The only serious question in life,” he said, “is whether to kill yourself or not.” Not having the courage of their convictions to embrace the reality of what it means to be locked within a world without the eternal God, Americans, by-and-large, have opted to embrace the weakling twin sister.

Having made such a choice, however, theirs is not simply a meaningless life of boredom where each person daily seeks to be “Distracted from distraction by distraction.” No: having chosen to reject the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, they are also now subjected to the tyranny of false-gods. After all, as Eliot said in 1939, “If you will not have God, (and He is a jealous God), pay your respects to Hitler and Stalin.”

Civil Government Demanding an anti-God and anti-humane conformity for the sake of an “equality” that never has and never will exist, and justifying its tyranny of centralized powers on the grounds of “efficiency” and “progress,” our Leviathan-like government strangles to death all diversity, variety, and individual freedom. Boredom is now a legislated societal norm.  

Education Statist education supports this boring conformity with an unrelenting war against excellence. Rejecting books that exalt transcendent Goodness, Beauty and Truth, it replaces them with dull and boring reading material written for the lowest common denominator, as well as with books that covertly or overtly exhort us to conform to the dictates of the State. Augmenting this war against the transcendent and excellent, students are taught that no person or culture is allowed to stand out due to singular achievements: all are to be given awards for merely participating.

Work Businesses, seeking higher and higher degrees of efficiency for the sake of higher and higher profit margins, treat people as cogs in a wheel. Not seeing each person as being created by God in the image of God and for God, there is no such thing as human dignity, only so many objects to be shuffled around the Monopoly game-board for the sake of the almighty dollar. Having accepted the lie of time without the timeless, the cogs embrace their fate and go through their days in dreariness.

Individuals Rejecting their status as being made a little lower than the angels and placed in a world enchanted with God’s presence, the only course left to the unbelieving blind is being subjected to the machinations of the Great Herdsman of our culture and the diversions of the vacuous fads and fashions of the meaningless moment. Of course, anarchy (aka, cultural suicide) is another option, but that’s a post for another day.

Is it any wonder that so many of us seek to be “Distracted from distraction by distraction”? No longer seeking to apprehend “The point of intersection of the timeless with time,” or the eternal guiding and defining the temporal, we become inanimate objects ruled over by the whims of others and a heartless fate. Time without the timeless filled with tyrants who control our times and, as Eliot wrote in his Four Quartets, a pointless “rising and falling. / Eating and drinking. Dung and death.”

*  Tumid: Swollen; distended.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2016

Coaching by Monte

Legendary Leadership: The Book

Learning From the Dead

Though he died, he still speaks.

- Hebrews 11.4

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.

- GK Chesterton

Very early in life, we learn to learn from our mistakes. We intuitively know that it is in our best self-interest to pay attention to what brings health, fulfillment, and success, and what doesn’t. However, as life is short and our bank of experiences limited, the wiser among us also realize the importance of learning from the experiences of others, which includes the dead.

When I was around 10 years old, my dad decided to see if he could expand my choice of reading materials from Green Lantern and Superman comic books to something a bit more substantive. Toward this end, he would listen for whomever I seemed to admire and then leave a short biography of the person on my bed. It worked. I loved reading about Albert Einstein, Mickey Mantle, Madam Curie, and George Washington. While unaware of it at the time, this was a crucial aspect of my development, as I was learning about what was required of me to be successful in life, not just regarding the honing of skill-sets, but also the importance of character. I was learning, albeit unconsciously, from the lives of others.

It was during my senior year of high school, in my Honors American Prose and Literature class, that my unconscious learning from others became conscious. (Thank you, Mrs. Cogar!) Now, it wasn’t only biographies on the living and the dead who were teaching and inspiring me, but, also, fictitious characters and stories. The stories of authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorn, Edgar Alan Poe, William Faulkner, and Flannery O’Conner didn’t simply entertain me, they were teaching me about human nature, ethics, wisdom, and the quest for redemption.

Wisdom From Across the Ages

Whether it is the right ordering of the soul and our lives, or the right ordering of society, for century after century the wise have always sought out a body of literature that contains ideas and ideals that have been tried and found true regarding First Principles and Permanent Things: classics where “time and timelessness intersect.” (TS Eliot) This body of literature includes fantasy, fiction, poetry, biography, history, classical philosophy and Christian theology. Western Civilization grew out of such a particular bank of wisdom that guided our ancestors in their quest to discover and pass on to future generations the ultimate values and virtues of a prosperous and harmonious society.

(Today, most people in the US are clueless, or worse, uninterested, regarding the books that were seminal in the development of Western Civilization and the founding of our nation. This helps explain much of the loss of faith, humanity, vision, identity, purpose, and the demise of all that made us a civil society that we are presently experiencing.)

As we seek to order our lives and our culture, wondering where the path of wisdom and truth lies, relying solely on our own wits and intelligence will leave us wandering down corridor after corridor of confusion and dismay. God’s wisdom, which has been providentially revealed over the ages, calls to us offering knowledge and understanding. Only the naive or foolish will ignore the offer.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2016

Coaching by Monte

Legendary Leadership: The Book

Me-ism

If I am not better than other men, at least I am different.

- Jean-Jacques Rousseau

It is the “Age of Me,” where being bizarre and boisterous, uneducated and undisciplined, passes for individuality.  Members of this cult worship at the altar of self where the individual’s feelings and momentary impulses are the measure of all things. Consequently, customs and traditions are thought to be ridiculous and the code of morality upon which western civilization was established is seen as hilariously ludicrous. In the Age of Me all that matters is the individual’s instincts, rendering him more like an animal than a human created in the image of God.

It seems to me that, as a majority of people think only in terms of “being myself,” few then are asking what it means to be a human or, more specifically, to be humane.  Up until around 100 years ago, one of the chief ends of education was to facilitate the shaping of souls by introducing students to the “permanent things” regarding what it means to be genuinely human, via art, history, literature, philosophy, and even theology. However -

Today it is believed that there aren’t any permanent things, no norms of human nature and behavior, only my unique experiences and sentiments. From such uniqueness, the me-ist then develops his own personalized code of morality that, at any moment, can morph into any shape he wishes. Subsequently, yesterday’s decadence can become today’s decency with a single flash of thought or feeling. Of course, to maintain this mindset, he must reject a religious view of life or, at least, a religion that adheres to permanent things: you know, things like The 7 Cardinal Virtues or The 7 Deadly Sins.

Jettisoning a religious view of life, which includes a transcendent moral order, me-ists scurry around doing whatever is right in their own eyes. Feeling that they are expressing and asserting their individuality, they seek no guidance from the cumulative wisdom of the past and sense no obligation regarding the inheritance they are leaving future generations. There is only me and now. Tragically, such anarchical individualism leads to the destruction of souls and the disintegration of society.

Seeking to be different for difference’s sake creates psychological abnormalities, not health and wholeness. Furthermore, seeking to be “me” is not the same thing as seeking to become the individual human God created me to become. The first leads to chaos and emptiness: only the latter leads to becoming genuinely human.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2016

CoachingByMonte

LegendaryLeadershipTheBook

What Sort of Conservative?

What is the good of words if they aren't important enough to quarrel over? Why do we choose one word more than another if there isn't any difference between them? If you called a woman a chimpanzee instead of an angel, wouldn't there be a quarrel about a word? If you're not going to argue about words, what are you going to argue about? Are you going to convey your meaning to me by moving your ears? The Church and the heresies always used to fight about words, because they are the only things worth fighting about.

- GK Chesterton

(As there are many Democrats who read this blog, many whom are dear and respected friends of mine, I am not writing to argue with or persuade you to change your mind. If you choose to read this, think of it as something that may offer some insights as to how to converse or debate with conservatives, as well as how to tell what sort of conservative you are encountering.)

Fear Based Conservatives

Fear of change These people’s fears are not so much a dread of future consequences based on principles, but simply a mindless loyalty to “how things have always worked.” Any change, for these people, is perceived as a threat to the foundations of their way of life.

Fear of Loss These men and women see their earning power dwindling, the cost of onerous regulations forcing them to charge more for their products or services, and the omen of higher taxes, and, “Dammit, this needs to end.” The problem is, however understandable, that this is a fear based gut reaction, not a principled belief in justice.

And why does this matter?

Because each of these fears belies a sense-based or sentimental conservatism that rarely has any intellectual foundation.  While you may applaud their voting for your preferred candidate or cause, such “conservatism” is ephemeral: tomorrow, they will support whoever buys off their fears with impossible promises. Remember: Fearful people vote their fears not their principles. (Note to liberals: these people are low-hanging fruit!)

Politically Ideological Conservatives

These True Believers have turned conservatism into a Political Religion - with dogmas and anathemas thrown in for free! These people are like Roger Williams (the Puritan, not the singer), whose demand for purity led him to refuse to eat the Lord’s Supper with sinners, which, at the end of his life, left him eating alone.

Conservatism is not a religion. This mindset is something that any principled conservative - from Edmund Burk to Russell Kirk – would vehemently oppose. Frankly, properly understood, it is not even an ideology. Conservatism is a mindset, a particular kind of character and approach to life, and the quest to discover and live by and for the “permanent things.” (TS Eliot) While a conservative mindset affects how one engages within the sphere of politics and political economics, it is about far more than politics.  

Instinctual Conservatives

These people’s hearts resonate with conservative principles. However, as they have yet to spend time reading and reflecting, they have no intellectual basis upon which to stand or from which to debate. Quite often this leaves them as “reeds in the wind,” not to mention lousy debaters.  (Note to liberals: higher hanging fruit but ripe with possibility.)

Principled Conservatism

Conservatism is about reverence for the permanent things: those values, precedents, and traditions that have been winnowed and sifted throughout history, where God has revealed His purposes for our existence and how societies can best live and function in harmony.

Conservatives believe in a constitutional limited government, not in populism or in “despotic democracy.” (Tocqueville)

Conservatives see an inexorable link between respect for private property and freedom.

Conservatism has a deep regard for what will make humans truly happy: virtue, not net-worth. Trust me here: if you meet a professing conservative who places no value on virtue, the public’s or his own, his conservatism is dying or already is dead, if it ever existed. (Note to {some} liberals: seize the day!)

Conservatives believe that tragedy will always be a part of human existence. While its effects can be ameliorated by the charitable acts of others, it cannot be eradicated. There are no utopias in our future.

Conservatives believe in the equality of worth of all humans before God, as well as equality before the courts. They do not believe, however, that equality of character and abilities exists, so do not advocate legislating an equality of results from demonstrably unequal people. Such equality has never existed and no matter what is legislated never will.

Conservatives believe in individuality but not individualism. Individuality is about respecting the diversity, variety, and uniqueness of all people. (This is one of the reasons for the Bill of Right’s Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Association, Freedom of Religion, and etc.) Individualism is about self-glorification (or deification) with no regard for living in community, societal harmony, or of permanent things.

Conservatives are averse to alterations of long standing norms, traditions, customs and institutions. I do not say that they are “against” change, only that they believe it should be organic - the culmination of a long and deliberative national conversation, rather than legislated by the fiat word of the Powers That Be.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2016

CoachingByMonte

LegendaryLeadership:TheBook

Patriotism and Nationalism Are Not Synonyms

Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.  - Charles de Gaulle

Nationalism is a silly cock crowing on his own dunghill.  -Richard Aldington

It seems to me a lot of people are using the words “patriotism” and “nationalism,” interchangeably. I beg to differ, as these words are not synonyms. Sure, I get that some people use them as such but, given our present national conversation where so many are touting the glories of nationalism and others are hearing “patriotism” when they shouldn’t be, I think it’s time to clear up our language, as well as to ask others to define their terms.

As I understand these two mindsets:

Patriots are proud of their nation’s culture and accomplishments and, at the same time, are aware of its failures.

Nationalists only tout their nation’s glories (real and imagined) but are willfully blind or indifferent to its failures.

The antisemites who called themselves patriots introduced that new species of national feeling which consists primarily in a complete whitewash of one's own people and a sweeping condemnation of all others. – Hanna Arendt

Patriots generally respect the accomplishments and cultures of other nations.

Nationalists belittle, resent, and are belligerent toward other nations and cultures.

Nationalism is an infantile thing. It is the measles of mankind. - Albert Einstein

Patriots are proud of their nation’s achievements, but they never, in dealing with other nations, seek to “achieve” at the expense of morality and justice.

Nationalists give no thought to right or wrong: only to what advances their nation’s interests.

Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception. - George Orwell

Patriots admire and appreciate their way of life and, if needed, will fight to defend it.

Nationalists want to force other nations to adopt their nation’s way of life.

Patriots have a sense of “national responsibility.” (Adlai Stevenson)

Nationalists take no responsibility for and give no thought to the effects their nation’s actions have on other nations, as they couldn’t care less.

Nationalism is the last refuge of scoundrels.  - Winston Churchill

Patriots place duty to God, family, personal integrity, morality, and justice, high on the list of their life’s priorities, which, in turn, governs their approbation of or obedience to the state.

Nationalism is a political religion: the worship of a particular state that commands its citizens has no other gods before it.

Pervading nationalism imposes its dominion on man today in many different forms and with an aggressiveness that spares no one. The challenge that is already with us is the temptation to accept as true freedom what in reality is only a new form of slavery. – John Paul II

Nationalism is idolatry. It is also the hubristic whitewashing of evil, a lust for blood (metaphorically or literally), a justification for injustice, the validation of greed, and the road to destruction. Patriots hear calls for nationalism as a harbinger of evil and will do her or his all to stand against it.

Or so I believe …

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2016

CoachingByMonte

LegendaryLeadership:TheBook

Political Activism and the Reality of Evil II

Some follow-up thoughts on my last post, Political Activism and the Reality of Evil

Striving for a societal utopia via political/ institutional machinations and alterations is a foolish and dangerous delusion. Any project or program for reforming society that does not take the existence of evil and its constancy into account is doomed to failure.

There is no such thing as “social progress,” as the term is typically used: there is only the infinitely slow and often imperceptible progress of the individual who is seeking, by the grace of God, to bring moral order into a soul mired in moral disorder. Therefore, the reformation that matters most is the reforming of the individual’s morals, which begins with embracing God’s grace and forgiveness and in seeking after virtue.

Politics deals with the problems of ethics and ethics are defined by religious faith. (Two of this nation’s primary religions are self-worship and the religion of despotic democracy - the majority is always right-eous.) The state exists to enforce morality. The only question, then, is, Whose Morality? However -

Passing all the “right” laws will never reform society, never eradicate evil. The belief in “salvation” by law and regulation is an evil in and of itself, leading us to look to the state, a politician, or a political party as a messiah who will usher in the peaceable kingdom.   

Dealing with evil in society must always begin with my own heart. Most strident and overzealous reformers have failed to deal with the logs in their own eyes (Matthew 7.3), which leaves them Pharisaical. Combating societal evil with evil attitudes and behaviors is just plain stupid, not to mention destructive.

Discarding any belief in objectively defined evil, we have marginalized the importance of churches and spiritual communities to societal health, as well as the critical nature of electing virtuous men and women to political office. Yes, wisdom, sound principles developed through deep reflection, and political savvy are also critical for our political leaders (as well as for ministers, priests, and rabbis!). However, I don’t see how anyone who is either agnostic or antagonistic toward virtue is going to have an adequate mindset regarding justice, the rule of law, or personal accountability.

Ameliorating the effects of evil doesn’t happen by simply counting votes, erecting “better” institutions, or inflicting evil on the despised minority de jure. It is always hearts and minds that must be at the forefront of our concern. Imagine if we put as much effort into sharing our faith and understandings regarding God’s love, grace, and wisdom with our neighbors for the last 30 years as we put into advocating specific social programs, political policies, and candidates … or in tearing them all down. The mind boggles.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2016

CoachingByMonte

LegendaryLeadership:TheBook

Political Activism and the Reality of Evil

The depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality but at the same time the most intellectually resisted fact.

- Malcolm Muggeridge

“Dear Sir: Regarding your article 'What's Wrong with the World?' I am.

Yours truly,”

- GK Chesterton

Most everywhere we look, we are seeing the disintegration of American society. We then ask ourselves, what do we do, what can we do to turn things around? We then begin frenetically running around seeking to reform the Department of Education, the Social Security Administration, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Immigration Customs Enforcement, US Customs and Border Patrol, the Internal Revenue Service, the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of our government, and so on. Of course this means then that we, both Democrats and Republicans, believe the primary source of our societal conflicts is an “it.”  Get “it” right and all will be well.

Really?

What if the source of our societal maladies is not in our institutions but in our hearts? What if our institutions are corrupt because we are corrupt? What if the fundamental problem is the evil that lies in each of our hearts: evils such as greed and envy, hatred and malice, pride and egoism, lawlessness and decadence, lust for power and control.

Having largely discarded religious faith, we jettisoned belief in a transcendent moral order and, with it, any concept of evil (moral disorder). Well that is not entirely accurate: we replaced religious belief with political ideals and dogmas, which we (Democrats and Republicans) adhere to and defend with a fanaticism of a witch burning Puritan.

Do you, O thou spiritual believer in Christ, doubt me, here? Pray then answer me this: if I disagree with your social agenda or choose to not vote for your favored candidate, are you going to anathematize me? Your Facebook posts tell me that you will.

It seems to me that today even Christians, who should know better, are wrestling more with “its” rather than hearts, including their own, behaving as if societal reformation begins and ends with political and institutional reformation and the election of the Right Candidate.

Newsflash: Even if you get “it” reformed and the “right” person elected, if people’s hearts are not transformed, your activism is nothing more than an attempt to put a classier suit on a corpse.

I believe that all political and social problems are ultimately problems of individual virtue. Therefore, all endeavors to reform society must start with the human heart and the fact that evil exists in the world and within us all. If it is reformation we are after then this is a reality that needs to inform and govern our political activism.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2016

CoachingByMonte

LegendaryLeadership:TheBook