gregory wolfe in image

from one of my favorite reads was an editorial by gregory wolfe on the issue of whether things are getting better or worse. he suggests that we lean toward 'declinism.' this idea means that most of us might be believing that the old days were better and we are headed "to hell in a handbasket."



i am reading along and he quotes annie dillard. her book (for the time being) is currently in a box in my garage with most of my other books, but i have to share what wolfe quoted in his great editorial. in the editorial he how we tend to see where we are as the reality and the place we figure everything out--and everything is coming to an end. then he quotes dillard who says:



"Is it not late? A late time to be living? Are not our heightened times the important ones? For we have nuclear bombs. Are we not especially significant because our century is?--our century and its unique Holocaust, its refugee populations, its serial totalitarian exterminations, our century and its anitbiotics, silicon chips, men on the moon, and spliced genes?"



wolfe points out that this was written in 2000 and was dated already. dillard is making fun of ourselves and our chronological point of reference and interpretation of how things are and where they are headed. if she wrote it today or someone wrote it a hundred years ago it would have different elements, but as wolfe says, "...history went rolling right along."



dillard says no to our interpretations:



"There were no formerly heroic times, and there was no formerly pure generation. There is no one here but us chickens, and so it has always been: a people busy and powerful, knowledgable, ambivalent, important, fearful, and self-aware; a people who scheme, promote, deceive, and conquer; who pray for their loved ones, and long to flee misery and skip death. It is a weakening and discoloring idea, that rustic people knew God personally once upon a time--or even knew selflessness or courage or literature--but that it is too late for us. In fact the absolute is available to everyone in every age. There never was a more holy age that ours, and never a less. There is no less holiness at this time--as you are reading this--than there was the day the Red Sea parted... In any instant the sacred may wipe you with its finger. In any instant the bush may flare, your feet may rise, or you amy see a bunch of souls in a tree. In any instant you may avail yourself of the power of love your enemies; to accept failure, slander, or the grief of a loss; or to endure torture. Purity's time is always now.

we live right here right now...it is a good time to be alive for all the best reasons.

i will fear no evil for thou art with me...