One of the major recent triumphs of the left (meaning primarily the spiritual left as in demonic powers and only secondarily those they influence on the cultural left) is the theft and corruption of love.
This chief among spiritual virtues has been hijacked and is now used as a weapon against truth. It has been reduced to a sentimentalised validation of men and women as they are here and now, that is to say as they are as fallen sinners. It has become a means to keep human beings locked into the fallen state and deny them a path of escape. For how can you ever turn to the good and the true if you are supported in your wrongness and not told that it is wrong? When sin is denied as sin or even lauded as virtue what hope is there for the sinner? And if those who draw attention to this are denounced as unloving and portrayed as enemies of humanity, as is often the case, the error is compounded and the way out even more blocked. This is what happens when love is detached from wisdom and truth, and virtues that should operate from within a spiritual perspective are detached from their true source and misapplied to the earthly plane.
Spiritually speaking, all love proceeds from God and human beings can only really know love in the full sense when they direct their hearts and minds towards God. Love without God is either a human emotion bearing within itself the possibility of its opposite or an idea that the subject tries to adapt his behaviour to because he recognises that it defines a good person. These are not necessarily wrong, one has to start somewhere, but they are not the real thing. Real love only comes when the personal will is aligned with the will of God and with that comes wisdom, the wisdom to discern that love is not just a feeling but has a purpose and that purpose is to bring all creation more fully into conscious union with its Creator.
When love is used as a way of diverting man from his true end of union with God then it has been corrupted. When it is restricted to the horizontal plane and not oriented towards the vertical then it has become separated from its source and so is not real love but something else masquerading as that. Love must first be directed vertically, to its source, before it can be properly expressed horizontally. If it does not make this connection then it risks being misapplied and even used against itself which is what is happening today.
It is not love that keeps human beings from fulfilling their real purpose of transcending their identification of themselves as themselves and realising their true nature as sons and daughters of the Most High. It is not love that seeks to make a prison more comfortable instead of giving the prisoner the key to the door and instructions on how to escape. Love does not confirm us in our present state but seeks to bring us up to a higher one. It is not about transient happiness but joy eternal.
I am forced to assume, as always, that God almighty in his great wisdom can get us out of this mess! He must be well aware of this kind of trickery and has prepared a path to reassert sufficient opportunities for his children to percieve the 'real deal' instead of its counterfeits or 'bait and switch' distractors. I think that if I did not simply put my woes up to God I would be rapidly despairing as a result of getting too intellectually bogged down in this kind of analytical thinking and arguements with others about the nature of love and so forth, which feels like it merely plays into the hands of those who do not seek truth but tear down the truth of those who believe in the divine. If I dont defer to God and try and figure it out alone I rapidly become depressed and frustrated with my fellow man who thinks me insane to even hold such foolish or childlike ideas as that of the Christian faith.
ReplyDeleteIt's a testing time now and no mistake. But then that's how we become worthy to receive grace, by proving that we can hold fast to the truth in all circumstances and when many worldly things are working to deflect us from that.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. I am flattered that God seems to think I am stronger than I think I am. I take solace in the notion that it is said in scripture (although i forget the reference) that God will not burden us with a trial which he does not feel we can cope with. I often pray that that my limits will not be tested too arduously but then I suppose that without that kind of test one cannot really grow.
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