as they always do. Yet not. It is not that “hoary headed frosts/ fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose”, but rather that the rose too often finds itself roasted. Scorched beneath an unaccustomed sun to the very point of being burned away. “The spring, the summer,/ the chiding autumn, angry winter change/ their wonted liveries, and the mazéd world,/ by their increase, now knows not which is which,/ and this same progeny of evils comes/ from our debate, from our dissension./ We are their parents and original.” (MND 2.1.96-102)
We are destroying, and perhaps we have already destroyed, our world. But no. They tell us there is time. Protocols and changes can still pull us back from the brink of irreversible destruction. Power generated from other sources that do not so magnify the sun. Of course “they” tell us this. It profits no politician to admit the truth on this score. What good would worldwide panic and despair do in such a case? Better to keep living as we have, pretending. The old Puritan idea of keeping your eyes straight ahead and acting “as if” you were one of the lucky elect (the exclusive 144,000 who the Bible says are already slated for entering heaven). If we behave “as if” it will all work out, then we live our life with the potential of heaven before us, instead of the reality of hell that almost everyone else will face. Clever at diplomatic politics, those Puritans.
Don’t fool yourself that they aren’t all around us now. I won’t go into Claude Fischer’s ideas about the Puritan legacy being one of “individual choice and social contract”, but I will argue that Jack Greene’s point about the Puritan use of “mutual surveillance to . . . suppress individual deviance and sin, exert tight control over the unruly forces of the market, diminish acquisitiveness and the covetousness or frivolous indulgence it engendered”*, is something clearly still in use today in the way that the so-called “Christian right” tends to make pronouncements and level judgements. How people in high places will try to justify separating mothers from their children by citing scripture.
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart. (MV 1.3.96-9)
The Bible itself will tell us of Christ’s caution to his followers about the end times: “Take heed that ye be not deceived: for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and the time draweth near: go ye not therefore after them.” (Luke 21:8)
And here’s a story from the BBC news:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44499048
and also this:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44503318
In the end, it becomes about what we’re going to do. How we endure, or what we do about it. Do we sit by and throw up our hands? Go into politics? Fight crime with crime and compound the face of sin upon humanity?
Here, the season of the frogs is almost past, although their chorus will endure in some places through the summer and into autumn. The great horned owls have finished their breeding, and the night sky quiets as they raise their howlets without the characteristic hooting of February and March. Not yet the summer solstice, and the weather has already gone hot on many days, heating up the rooms until after dark when some cool air usually gives a bit of relief. Last summer, another summer of devastating fires, people tell me that temperatures reached 109 degrees Fahrenheit, (almost 43 Celsius). The kind of heat that melts asphalt and fosters pounding migraines in the sisters and brothers of that affliction. Even if such heat does not kill people outright (which it sometimes does), it is like feeling the hot breath of death upon our neck. We feel what Nick Cave’s Golden Horn Hooligan felt: something behind us, hot and angry and explosive, chasing us with a detonator.
About death, we are told we can do little. At least about our own. That unseen car behind us. Headlights on the long dark road. Only headlights. Don Juan Matus talks of the lights that death wears on his hat. Sometimes he turns the lights off, but he is always behind us. Or she. The angel of death that appears as a popular cultural icon (as opposed to Gabriel or Michael, who also variously serve in that office in the Bible) may be as beautiful as they say.
Still, sometimes we can prevent, or forestall the deaths of others. Or their misery. I marvel at how we can allow our government to function so. Separating mothers from their children and quoting scripture to justify the act. “What dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo?” (MM 2.2.208) We become “not angels” in our tacit support. Anti-angels. The only difference may be that, in Measure for Measure, the sanctimonious Angelo realizes that he has lost any holy thread, and that the adversary has won him over.
What will we do about this? I urge anyone reading this to listen. Pay attention. Every day. Every minute. If you think those who cite scripture to support evil will not come knocking on your door, then you are dead wrong. They have always been with us, and they will remain so. And they may well come for us too, leaning on scripture to justify silencing the dissenters, sooner rather than later now. That spray paint on the wall does not bode well.
Pay attention. Know what’s happening around you. Be aware. Too much damnation arises from oblivion. Sharpen your words and use them when called for. Pitchforks and torches? I do not advocate such things. But it might not hurt to keep the garden shed in order just in case. Tiki torches all in a row.
No, frankly, I don’t know what happened to the formatting, which seems to be confused. But be safe out there, and keep out of the heat as much as you can.
* See http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2010/11/24/pilgrims-puritans-and-their-american-legacy/
