Dawn of the End of the Oughts
When I see the sea and rivers foaming over rocks, when I see trees growing tall, rising out of the fog - I remember that nature in itself is a beautiful work of art.
But, I can only wonder what it might be like without the neon signs and the streetlights and the pavement cutting veins and the fences marking dividing lines. I can only wonder what it would be without a name, without a brand, without being owned.
Out the window of the train, the space is wide and wasted now, full of empty houses and rusting metal and fields full of nothing but trash and death - places that were once claimed but lost their value to be recalled.
Trees grow out here where they are told to grow, water flows wherever it can find a space before it's taken up with another house, with another plotted bit of the scenery, with another planned neighborhood where the cookie-cut frames all crouch together on a littered landscape trying to hold together against the spirit of the world they have ravaged.
Bits of forest huddle against the wasted land, shivering against the cold of humanity, hoping an axe won't be the next thing to strike. Hoping it's the winter or the cold or some less-calculated thing that decides their fate instead of another builder with his tools and his destruction and his disregard.
Out here, the train whistle blows and we pass it all by. Out here, where little evergreens grow in wait to be cut down for the next year's solstice celebration, for the next year's commercialized rampage, for the next year's religious jubilation, for the next year's holdiay season.
This is the future out here that we travel through at 60 miles per hour tucked warmly inside the belly of a metal beast burning fossil fuels to get ourselves across the land. Burning up the sun and the ground to move without our own expense.
The future from this angle is bleak and hopeless, sterile and useless. It is made up of rusted ruins of a society built without quality, with the illusions of granduer and wealth and richness. It is the hollowed husks of barnyards that once stood for work and a lifetime, but now stand for nothing more than a family scraping by on McDonald's and the Wal-Mart where everything is still afforadable to the forgotten because it is indescribably cheap.
This future is thin and easily thrown out, cheap and shoddy. It lacks any craftsmanship or art whatsoever. Because the future is made by machine, occasionally handled by a human, and shipped back and forth so many times that no-one knows where it's coming from.
Because the future is global in the worst sense of the word.
It speaks one language with poor diction and no comprehension. It reads one sinisterly simplistic history full of lies and half-observations. It tells the stories of the companies that built it, and it knows the myths of the soulless gods that made it. It sits on a hill without knowledge of what is below. It rests on a rock without knowing what rock is.
Because the future is out of context and it's citizens do not care. Because the future is out of rhythm but it's citizens have lost their senses. Because the future is out of place but it's citizens do not take notice.
So we will travel to the moon and the far reaches of space and we will become the aliens that we have feared and we will stretch our hand of careless destruction as far as we can stretch it, until there is nothing of substance left to take.
Then, we will pass away and our story will have no-one to recall it.
Is not our God bigger than all this?
Will the people of God not stir against it?
Will the Spirit of our God no longer move us to take up the burden of truth and bear it to the world?
Somewhere out there in the future, amongst the waste and the rubbish, there is a prohpet waiting to stir, preparing to speak.
Will you listen?
Ten years have passed, and a new era is beginning.
Where will you stand in it?
But, I can only wonder what it might be like without the neon signs and the streetlights and the pavement cutting veins and the fences marking dividing lines. I can only wonder what it would be without a name, without a brand, without being owned.
Out the window of the train, the space is wide and wasted now, full of empty houses and rusting metal and fields full of nothing but trash and death - places that were once claimed but lost their value to be recalled.
Trees grow out here where they are told to grow, water flows wherever it can find a space before it's taken up with another house, with another plotted bit of the scenery, with another planned neighborhood where the cookie-cut frames all crouch together on a littered landscape trying to hold together against the spirit of the world they have ravaged.
Bits of forest huddle against the wasted land, shivering against the cold of humanity, hoping an axe won't be the next thing to strike. Hoping it's the winter or the cold or some less-calculated thing that decides their fate instead of another builder with his tools and his destruction and his disregard.
Out here, the train whistle blows and we pass it all by. Out here, where little evergreens grow in wait to be cut down for the next year's solstice celebration, for the next year's commercialized rampage, for the next year's religious jubilation, for the next year's holdiay season.
This is the future out here that we travel through at 60 miles per hour tucked warmly inside the belly of a metal beast burning fossil fuels to get ourselves across the land. Burning up the sun and the ground to move without our own expense.
The future from this angle is bleak and hopeless, sterile and useless. It is made up of rusted ruins of a society built without quality, with the illusions of granduer and wealth and richness. It is the hollowed husks of barnyards that once stood for work and a lifetime, but now stand for nothing more than a family scraping by on McDonald's and the Wal-Mart where everything is still afforadable to the forgotten because it is indescribably cheap.
This future is thin and easily thrown out, cheap and shoddy. It lacks any craftsmanship or art whatsoever. Because the future is made by machine, occasionally handled by a human, and shipped back and forth so many times that no-one knows where it's coming from.
Because the future is global in the worst sense of the word.
It speaks one language with poor diction and no comprehension. It reads one sinisterly simplistic history full of lies and half-observations. It tells the stories of the companies that built it, and it knows the myths of the soulless gods that made it. It sits on a hill without knowledge of what is below. It rests on a rock without knowing what rock is.
Because the future is out of context and it's citizens do not care. Because the future is out of rhythm but it's citizens have lost their senses. Because the future is out of place but it's citizens do not take notice.
So we will travel to the moon and the far reaches of space and we will become the aliens that we have feared and we will stretch our hand of careless destruction as far as we can stretch it, until there is nothing of substance left to take.
Then, we will pass away and our story will have no-one to recall it.
Is not our God bigger than all this?
Will the people of God not stir against it?
Will the Spirit of our God no longer move us to take up the burden of truth and bear it to the world?
Somewhere out there in the future, amongst the waste and the rubbish, there is a prohpet waiting to stir, preparing to speak.
Will you listen?
Ten years have passed, and a new era is beginning.
Where will you stand in it?
7 Thought(s):
If I remember my church history correctly. Anytime God goes silent, prophets become rare and there are fewer great men of God... it generally means a judgement is on the horizon.
I don't think God ever goes silent. I think it is people who forget to listen to the message and the voice that is always there.
We bring our own judgement upon us because we do not change course when there is clearly danger ahead.
I wonder: We make comments like this regarding the dangers of the machines we have created in our image--Do not the Angels make the same comments to the Father about the beings He created in His image?
That is an unequal equation.
It would be equal if angels commented on the dangers of angels' creations.
I'm not sure what you are trying to imply, Jeff. Could you explicate?
These are interesting observations from one who has chosen the city life. There are those who still live off the earth and have little in the way of machinery in their lives. There are those who live in nearly untouched natural habitats. Those places still exist for those who seek them. But you have chosen urban life. If you despise such life, leave it.
Ralikat--From your comment, you would seem to imply that you yourself are the creator of the machines of which you complain. "It would be equal if angels commented on the dangers of angels' creations." Of course, you are not the creator of the machines, just as the angels are not the creators of G-D's creations.
It seems very strange that you stand in a position in which you are able to comment with distaste on those abilities and gifts that were freely given by G-D to man.
I also have displeasure at being surrounded by the steel entrapments of urban life. That is why I am working towards unplugging and moving to the country. Of course, I am not advocating that others be required to do the same!
The difference between a liberal and a conservative: If a Conservative does not like city life, he moves to the country. If a liberal does not like city life, he says all cities should be destroyed as evil.
For those who may have not gathered the true spirit of these thoughts, here is a short explication: The inteniton of the post was not to draw a line between "urban" and "pastoral" life. I was, instead, speaking to the attitude of our current society. The attitudes which, yes have build urban life, but have also shaped suburban and pastoral life in this country, as well. I am bemoaning the attitude we have currently which throws out the context or the source or the cost of things in order to move faster. I am bemoaning the permanent loss of farmland and small communities being held together by their own small resources. I am bemoaning our lack of concern for the natural orders that have existed for many, many years in order that we may fill our own personal desires. I am bemoaning, not the city - which is an organism of itself and has its valid and beneficial uses - but the mentality that we can build as high and as wide and as deep as we wish without any cost to the world or ourselves.
I see in this mentality the story of Babel rising again, and I fear for our society's soul.
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