day no. 15,247: curb appeal

"The English word 'earth' comes from the same Old English word that gives us 'yard,' a tamed piece of ground. In this sense, think of middle earth as a cultivated portion of land, surrounded by wilderness. The wilderness is modernity, full of monsters, and the yard is a small and pleasant shire. While our children are little, we want to imitate our medieval forefathers and tell our children the truths in fairy tales that will keep them out of the woods. When they are grown, they will be able to fight the monsters and expand the fences of middle earth." - Douglas Wilson, Angels in the Architecture

Our medieval forefathers had a better grasp on truth, love, and beauty than our modern day step-dads. Medievalism saw God everywhere while modernity only sees God if it comes to the end of that which it thinks it sees. God’s presence is, if permitted at all, relegated to the fringes of knowledge and used as a stop gap between the ever decreasing space between the ceiling of what is knowable and the high water mark of what we think we know.

Modernity thinks our sees our ancestors were infatuated with monsters because they were monstrous. Modernity dispatches beauty in order to eliminate ugliness, mocks truth in order to reduce lies and scoffs at goodness in order to end badness.

Modernity attempts to level the playing field by calling the lowlands “the high ground." It says fences are the enemies of liberty and lets in every fowl ghoul the fences had kept out.

Modernity “tames” the world by calling the wilderness a "yard.” It lets the weeds flourish and then hangs a "mission accomplished" banner over them. It assumes the goal was always merely to call it a "yard" and congratulates itself for its cleverness in doing what our forefathers failed to do. It would rather redefine "yard" than do the hard work of cultivating the soil.

Modernity is at war with truth, beauty and goodness and makes their very essence a cuss word. It calls abstraction "truth," androgyny "beauty," and disintegration "goodness."

The cultural mandate of Christianity is to conquer the world, tame the land, subdue the giants, slay the dragons, and to cultivate the truth, beauty and goodness.