Words of Encouragement; or, How Our Leaders Might Exhort Us (if they could first be honest with themselves)

"Let not your hearts be troubled; neither be afraid. 

"I.e., don't let yourselves be discouraged even for a second by Afghanistan and other so-called reversals, withdrawals, etc. Always make it a point to look at the practical side of the larger picture. Nobody can control everything: not YET anyway. In the meantime, why not focus on what we humans - and most of all we indomitable Yanks - can and have controlled? 

"Just think what a God-like generation we've become in our proper domain, insulated and buffered by this Americanized/Sinicized/Amazonized global corporatopia we've fashioned. 'Oh, but it's still a FORTRESS!' you say? Well, and what of it? And where do you suppose the God would be, without the fortification and protection of His Heaven?

" 'And just what [you ask] are the earmarks of our self-created divinity?' 

"Well, first off, consider what are the defining characteristics of so-called Deity Itself, as catalogued in our far-from-perfect (but nonetheless foundational) Scriptures. And then think how far we've already built and advanced upon them. 

"Consider the God of both Scriptures (Hebrew and Greek), with His strange, eccentric, self-effacing - even humble - perfection: one that's inseparable from a sort of modest, discretionary wisdom that actually respects the nature of the things He's made. Almost as if they had made themselves - or at very least had created their worlds? - and He was somehow reluctant to intrude. 

"Consider His love, that prizes above all the kind of grace - graciousness? - we call patience and kindness. As if these silly virtues were somehow capable of overcoming evil, or redeeming anything - much less anyone - from the corruptions of time, chance and 'sin'!

"Consider, finally, this so-called power of His, that finds it necessary to abdicate - nay, evacuate - itself, to the insane point of dying an agonizing death of a piece of wood! And His enemies are supposed to be impressed? Is that what it's going to take to over-awe REAL sin, real rebellion? On the other hand, if you and I are to be rescued and saved - well then, who are we wiser to depend on: the prince who relinquishes power, or the peon who seizes power and is not ashamed to wield it with a vengeance?

"And now picture, if you can, a very different - if not opposite - sort of perfection. One that's far too productively busy to fret over, say, just how a creature has been made . . . or what is its proper mode and manner of life . . . or even what makes for its happiness. Picture rather a - why not? - wisdomless, mechanistic, and, yes, LIFELESS perfection. One that has less and less to do with any facet of what we call Creation, precisely because it is already making itself sovereign in those areas of human life that really count: the realms of REAL Power - of procedure, technique and organization. And, of course, technology. 

"Imagine a graceless, commanding, heavy- and HIGH-handed love, that no longer needs to listen or be attentive because it it always knows best already . . . or in any case knows a helluva lot more than you or I do . . . and even when it doesn't, why, surely we're all better off for having learned from our experts' legitimate mistakes??? 

"Finally, picture not a poised, serene, satisfied power - such as one might find, say, in Heaven? - but rather one that, being 'of the earth earthy,' is unabashedly eager, hungry, insatiable. Such that it never met a corner of the universe it didn't want to conquer, and dissect, and find some really good use for.  Such that, in fact, it's not just utterly void of either sensitivity or subtlety, but hasn't got the least bit of time, respect or regard for any such antiquated constraints.

"In short, consider - and admire - a Perfection, Love and Power that can't be bothered really to understand any created thing, precisely because the time is so short, and there's not a moment to lose in the urgent business of learning, and mastering, how that creature is to be best utilized. Remember, we humans are gods with a difference. We're not in the business of creating a universe; we're simply trying to control, manipulate, reconstruct, and finally put to some good use, the one we've got."

(Edited.)