day no. 17,338: necessary and ugly

“All government is an ugly necessity.” — G.K. Chesterton, The Meaning of Merry England, A Short History of England

Because of sin government is necessary and because of sin government is ugly. Without government, the world would be even uglier than it is, but government does do its own part to add to the ugly.

Romans 13:1-2

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.

It is good that powers exist. Image bearers were made to live in covenantal realities. People are molecular, not atomistic. We were made to live in relation to others, beginning first with parents and siblings, and then extending to church, neighbors, cities, counties, states, and nations. We organize ourselves into representative associations like marriage, churches, HOAs, school districts, and counties. These associations require covenants. Covenants require representatives. These things are not in themselves ugly realities, these are the beauty of God's design.

But because of sin, the reasons for these associations is often related to sin, e.g. law enforcement. And what Chesterton is pointing out is that the law enforcers are themselves lawbreakers. Those in charge of punishing sin are themselves sinners.

day no. 17,337: desperate is dangerous

Proverbs 27:7

The full soul loatheth an honeycomb;

but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.

Desperate is dangerous.

Desperate people are in danger of devouring poison.

Contented people are in danger of being devoured by desperate people, if they're not careful.

Do not get too close to someone who needs closeness too much.

Do not confide in someone who needs to be needed too much.

Do not give attention to someone who needs attention too much.

Desperate people are a danger to themselves and others.

"For you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you." — St. Augustine

Restless hearts will give you no rest if you get mixed up with them. Until they find Christ, they are not safe. They are like a drowning victim who will take down anyone who tries to help them. Unless Jesus saves their lives, they will drown and they will drown anyone else who gets too close to them.

day no. 17,336: a longhouse headache

“If there must be a head, why the man? Well, firstly, is there any very serious wish that it should be the woman?” — C.S. Lewis

Men were made to be responsible. Many do not like that and try to abdicate, but that just leaves their responsibilities to fall on others's shoulders. But whose fault is that? Men's. Men can be irresponsible, but they cannot be aresponsible. They do not have the ability to avoid that weight. And everyone knows it.

“What is called ‘matriarchy’ is simply moral anarchy, in which the mother alone remains fixed because all the fathers are fugitive and irresponsible.” — G. K. Chesterton

Matriarchy is not women ruling, it is men ruling poorly. Men cannot NOT rule. They can only rule well or not so well. The feminists know this. They hate men for leading and then they hate men for failing to lead. They do this because they hate men, not because they hate authority or responsibility. They want to separate what God has joined together. They want to possess authority without having to take responsibility. They are at war with reality. They want to live according to a new dictionary, but they want men to live according to the old one. 

They want to blast a man for opening a door for a lady and they want him to pay child support he abandons her. They want him to pay for the abortion and they want him to pay for the wedding.

day no. 17,335: kingdom building and culture shaping

"I desire my children to be educated south of the Mason Dixon line and always to retain right of domicile in the Confederate States." — J. E. B. Stuart

When you know what you want, you know what you want for your children. When you love your land, you want your children to love it and to inherit it.

"Men who raise families that remain in fidelity to tradition will end up with descendants ruling the world.” — E.H. Looney

Covenantal continuity is the key to kingdom building and culture shaping.

“People who take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants.” — Thomas Babington Macaulay

Those who despise their parents will raise children who despise them. The first commandment with a promise is, "Honor your father and mother," and anyone who fails to do so, or goes as far as to despise their fathers and mothers, not only misses out on the promise to inherit the earth, but they incur upon themselves the curses of those who rail against their God-provided patriarchs.

Proverbs 30:17

The eye that mocketh at his father, 

and despiseth to obey his mother, 

the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, 

and the young eagles shall eat it.

Those who flip off their fathers and mock their mothers end up flipping off their futures. They are the kind of people who end up being left for dead and devoured by wild animals instead of honored by their loved ones in burial. No one risks their lives to retrieve their bodies as men did for Jonathan. No one risks their heads to get a cup of cold water as men did for David. Those who disobey their parents dishonor the Lord and end up dying to the regret of no one.

day no. 17,334: chesterton's last words

“The issue is now clear. It is between light and darkness, and everyone must choose his side.” — G. K. Chesterton

These are reportedly, depending on who you talk to, either some of the last words of G.K. Chesterton, or the very last words ever sad by him. Either way, the sentiment is one of parting words.

It calls to mind the same kind of wrap up music that Solomon uses at the end of Ecclesiastes.

Ecclesiastes 12:13

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.

There is light and there is darkness and they are mutually exclusive. You must choose one or the other. To refuse to make a choice is to choose the darkness. 

Acts 17:30

God commandeth all men every where to repent.

Everyone has been commanded by God to repent. To not repent is to repent of repentance. Everyone repents of something. They either repent of their repentlessness or they repent of the idea of having to something to repent of.

“‘Have you ever noticed,’ said Dimble, ‘that the universe, and every bit of the universe is always hardening and narrowing and coming to a point?’ His wife waited as those wait who know by long experience the mental processes of the person who is talking to them. ‘I mean this,’ said Dimble in answer to the question she had not asked. ‘If you dip into any college, or school, or parish, or family – anything you like – at a given point in its history, you always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow room and contrasts weren’t quite so sharp; and that there’s going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and choices are even more momentous. Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse: the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing. The whole thing is sorting itself out all the time, coming to a point, getting sharper and harder.’” — C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength

Neutrality is not impractical, it is impossible and that fact is becoming increasingly more obvious as God continues to bring everything under one head, the Lord Jesus Christ.

"As we reject the myth of neutrality, we must remember that we are not rejecting neutrality as a bad thing, but rather as an impossible thing." — Douglas Wilson, Excused Absence

It is Christ or chaos. There is no third way. There is Christ, the Light of the World, and there is the utter darkness. Choose wisely. Choose faithfully. But you will have to choose.

day no. 17,333: monsters within and monsters without

"Save for defense of my native state, I never desire again to draw my sword." ― Robert E. Lee

A good soldier must rise up to defend his people, but he must not get off on getting after others. He must be a man of peace inasmuch as it is the true aim of his warfare. He is willing to war for the sake of peace, but not for the sake of scratching some itch to mix things up.

"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him." ― G.K. Chesterton

A good man puts himself between the danger and the beloved. He fights hard against those opposing his people precisely because his people are behind him. A good soldier is his people's shield. He protects them from the weapons of the wicked by engaging with them directly in combat.

Nehemiah 4:14

And I looked, and rose up, and said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, Be not ye afraid of them: remember the Lord, which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses.

We must not be the people other communities need to protect themselves from. We must not become the monsters against which the good men of that land gather together to oppose in order to protect the people that they love. Live in peace and quiet and be willing and able to defend your place and your people, but resist the urge to become the kind of person a peaceful people would need to protect themselves from. 

A good man must be able to be strong enough to fight back the monsters and strong enough to resist the urge to become one.

day no. 17,332: Christ is a good commander in chief

"To be a good soldier, you must love the army. To be a good commander, you must be willing to order the death of the thing you love." ― Robert E. Lee

A good warrior loves the battle. A good general loves winning the battle. The solider puts his life on the line. The commander must put his troops in the line of fire. A good solider loves the things behind him and so he fights the evil in front of him that is coming against it. A good general loves the men in front of him, but he must send them into contact with the evil if there is any hope of saving and defending the things his soldiers love.

"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him." — G.K. Chesterton

The good, or true, soldier is not motivated by hatred of what is before him, but by love of that which is behind him. He lays his life down in the hopes of saving the lives of those back at home. The good, or true, commander is not so indifferent to his men as to send them unnecessarily into harm's way or into more harm's away than absolutely essential to the mission, but he is also not so sentimental that he cannot bear to send his beloved men into battle. He must send them into harm's way, but he must do so with a heavy heart and a hope and a prayer that most, if not all of them, will come back.

"Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.” — G.K. Chesterton

The solider is willing to die because he thinks life is worth living and he wants his loved ones back at home to continue enjoying their lives. Courage is loving life enough to be ready to die for it.

"The one perfectly divine thing, the one glimpse of God's paradise given on earth, is to fight a losing battle - and not lose it." — G.K. Chesterton

You must fight with a mind to win and a willingness to die. You cannot kill other men in good conscience without accepting their right to defend themselves against you. And you must be willing to lose your life for the sake of advancing your cause.

“Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave.” — G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

God has defeated defeat. He is a good general. He is not indifferent to His men. He sends them into harm's way, but He does so for the love of the world and the glory of His name. Christ is a good commander in chief. His people are not merely pawns in a game, they are His squad in the heart of eternal struggle and spiritual warfare.

Psalm 116:15

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.

Not one hair can fall from our head without His knowledge, how much more so any soul who falls in the line of duty?