This Is Our Time

The Anchoress » the dark, lamentable catalogue…

Perhaps if, in the 1990’s, ……Churchill’s policy had become our policy,…..

piqued my thinking. Why didn’t we? Why did it take us so long to move forward, and why are we halting yet?

Until 9/11/2001 we were caught up in the self-promoting Clinton years, the Yuppie culture, and a most cavalier attitude about where all our vacillating and escapism was taking us.

IOW, we didn’t have the heart to implement a Churchill type of policy. Our thinking as peoples was simply not there yet.

I, and my generation of Christians failed in our efforts to promote strength of purpose and values in our cultures, and even within ourselves. I have not fully considered why that is, but now, quite late we are stirring from sleep and floundering around to put out the fires. It is almost like before we were dreaming that we were accomplishing that, only to wake to the rude sound of the World Trade Center collapsing and terrorism on our own shore.

In Churchill’s time, the generation was more confident of what they held dear, they were more naive about a war to end all wars and their own will to wage it. Times are different, the culture is different….. and the rebuilding of a Civitas is slow, encumbered by new and different problems.

In WW2 we interned the race we feared as an enemy…. we did many such things that now are not countenanced.

And I would not have them to be, in that way. It is maddening, and flummoxing. Perhaps because we view the past too fondly and do not formulate what we must do now.

We do not live in our parents time, in Churchill’s time, although they left us wisdom and history to work with. While good to gather treasures of wisdom from their experience, we have to awaken to our own challenges. Viet Nam perhaps should have taught us that: warfare and the cultures have been changing, so what do we do now?

One thing that the Islamofascists have done is clarify the stakes, the urgency, and the core of what we value in our civilization through their attacks and their intransigency.

We are returned to ideas of good and evil, of truth and error, of life and death. And we must struggle with our hesitancy to choose. We must win over that hesitancy, first, within ourselves. We must say,”yes” I want freedom, I want the hardwon rights, I want to value my ability to follow my beliefs. I want these things and I will make the choices to hold them and protect them. Perhaps each generation must choose in their turn, and perhaps this is our time.

For a long time I have cherished another quote of Churchill :

“If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all odds against you and only a precious chance of survival. There may be even a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.” -Winston Churchhill

We are moving through the continuum, the pressure increases, rather than decreases, the costs rise, and we still vacillate. We still cavil and set up our straw men, not realizing they are onlyt fodder for the fires of destruction.

I want to hear trumpet clarity. It is time to take stock, of where we are and where we are going and what it is going to cost us. Not only will we do this thing in our generation, but will we have the heart to do it right? To take what we have learned about putting away prejudice and self-interest and working together for good as long as it is day.

The night is closing in, and we have few enough lanterns and light houses, although I would like to be wrong about this. I would like to hope that we are not in for such a struggle.

But I am not optimistic about that. At the same time, I am hopeful that we will find our backbones and our vision. With God’s help.