Sometimes I feel like this…

We are living in the proverbial “interesting times.” To say the world is in a state of flux would be absurdly generous. The world is in a state of freefall. Nothing will stop this fall now, until, inevitably, we hit the ground. And having lost the use of our wings, due to rampant materialism and generations of spiritual lockdown, we have no civilizational resources left with which to slow our descent and soften the landing. We will land hard. There will be severe blood loss and irreparably broken bones. If there is survival at all, which there very well may be, the life that remains will assuredly be distorted and crippled. 

Living in such a debilitated state, materially restricted as never before, struggling with daily pain and frustration, we will often wonder whether there is any kind of “long term” for us, or whether our fate is merely to fade and wither in our debilitation and despair until we disappear entirely from this Earth, or rather dissolve into it. Many will surrender to precisely that fate. A few will not. These few will crawl and starve their way to some new semblance of stability and order. They will distract one another from their pain and anger by mimicking the birdsong in the trees, and learn to twist their faces into a sad smile when nature seems to respond to their song, as though accepting them. They will begin to dream aloud of imaginary worlds in which men’s bones are strong and straight, and likewise their spirits. They will eventually try to urge one another toward such a world, until the imaginary begins to seem possible, and then almost real.

The birds will wait for us throughout this trial, as they always have. They are waiting now, and I suspect they know it.