The Warrior Priest Podcast

In the modern West, the hearth has gone cold. The fires that once knit family and village together have been replaced with a different flame—the flickering blue light of the screen. John Michell warned of this in his strange, luminous writings. He saw how the displacement of the hearth led to the displacement of meaning. No longer do we gather around a living fire, telling the old stories, hearing the wisdom passed down in hushed voices. No—we huddle instead around the electric glow of mass-produced stories, sold to us by the same companies who profit from our outrage, our fear, our endless hunger for novelty.Michell said it plainly: once the hearth was the link between heaven and earth. Now, that chain has rusted. The fire we stare into now is cold, sterile, dead.The folk tales are gone. The folk songs are gone. Replaced by noise.And it matters. God help us, it matters. Because without the old songs, without the old myths, without the fire that once drew our gazes upward and outward toward wonder, we become small. Smaller than we were meant to be. Easily led. Easily frightened. Easily bought. It is a short step from forgetting your own songs to singing the songs of your conquerors.And so here we are: divided, outraged, distracted. The paradise of the rich, Victor Hugo said, is built out of the hell of the poor. And our masters know it. They fuel it. They love it. They need it.And we go on, applauding them, fighting each other, shouting ourselves hoarse over scraps.We have forgotten who we are. Forgotten the hearth. Forgotten the brotherhood. Forgotten the great chain that links heaven to earth, earth to hearth, hearth to heart.And unless we remember, unless we kneel, as T.S. Eliot said—not kneel before flags or corporations or the endless cult of Self, but kneel before the living God—unless we kneel, we will continue to slouch. To spectate. To slip away into silence...

But the truth is quieter than that. It moves without slogans. It walks without a flag.It looks like this: a deaf and blind man named Tim, finding his way onto a flight in Boston, one hand stretched out into the dark. And a stranger gives up his seat, and flight attendants allow their faces to be touched so he can know they are there, so he can feel the kindness in the lines of their cheeks. It looks like a fifteen-year-old girl named Clara, spelling words into the palm of a man she’s just met—letter by letter, patience and grace made flesh.This is the revolution the world forgets. The kind that takes no pictures. The kind that doesn’t tweet. The kind that doesn’t need a camera crew to know it mattered.

...when we say, “I am depressed,” we start to believe the sorrow is the whole of us. That it's etched into the skin, like a birthmark. That it's our name now. But when we say, “The sorrow is on me,” we leave room. Room for the truth that this thing might lift. That it might pass. That we are more than what presses us down.There’s a similar pattern in Scots Gaelic, in older English, in Hiberno-English still found in country places. You’ll hear it in the way people used to talk:“The fear came over me.”“A sadness was upon her.”Those turns of phrase weren’t just poetic, they reflected a whole way of understanding the soul. That feelings are visitations. Weather fronts. Shadows that fall, and then pass. Spirits, maybe, fleeting, but strong.In that old world, the self was not an island but a wide field, open to the wind and the Word. And so, what came upon a person—sorrow, joy, fear—was not owned, but witnessed. Not claimed, but endured.

What happened to you is not your identity. The wound you carry, the abuse you suffered, doesn’t get to have the final word. It’s part of your story, yes. It has shaped you, but it cannot define you, because Someone greater has stepped into your pain and claimed you as His own. Jesus knows exactly how it feels to be betrayed, violated, and wounded—He knows it in His flesh and blood. He knows it on a cross. He knows it in the scars He carries still. And what He says to you, right now, is that you belong to Him. And because you belong to Him, that means your wounds belong to Him, too. Your pain is held, seen, and loved—deeply loved—by the One who carries scars of His own. And here’s what makes all the difference: His wounds can heal yours. - D.

We live in an age of collapse. Spiritually, mentally, emotionally, even physically, we are coming undone. The signs are everywhere. The old symbols no longer hold meaning. The words spoken in sacred places ring hollow. Our stories, once full of weight, have been traded for distractions that pass like dust in the air. We were given something rich, something rooted, something deep—and we have spent the last century peeling it away, layer by layer, as if we believed we could stand without the thing that held us up.And now we feel it—the weightlessness, the drift, the growing sense that something is missing, though few can name what it is. -D.

Somewhere along the way, we lost the old way of seeing, the deep sense that a pattern lies beneath all things. Scientific materialists insist we’re nothing more than arrangements of dirt, that our griefs and joys are sparks in a gray swirl of neurons. The Gnostics preach the world is a wicked trap, that matter is a cage for the spirit. But both stray from the bedrock truth. When God spoke the world into being, He called it good. Not flawed, not worthless—good. Yet, wandering in the world we see now—hard ground, hungry eyes, a planet bristling with harm—we wonder what went astray.

The Weight of Gold, the Lightness of GracePoverty of spirit—what a strange, thin phrase it’s become, brittle in the mouths of modern men who’ve never walked barefoot on cold earth, never felt the raw ache of want, not just in the belly but in the soul. To be poor in spirit isn’t a matter of meek nods and saintly sighs. It’s not weakness, not a bowed head for show. It’s an emptiness carved out deep enough for something greater to fill. Like the hollow in the earth where the seed falls, dark and unseen, but ready. The ache isn’t the end; it’s the beginning—the ache is where grace rushes in.But we’ve grown used to surfaces, to sheen and shimmer. We’re magpies, dazzled by the glitter of things that promise fullness but offer only echoes. The clink of coins, the soft glow of screens, each flickering to distract from the hollow. Gold glitters because it reflects light, but it holds none of its own. Stack it high, let it spill from chests and accounts, yet it’s cold in the hand, colder in the heart. A man can die rich and still be empty, his soul an unfurnished room.The old ones knew better—the story-tellers and seers with their feet thick in mud, their nostrils seasoned by turf smoke, and their minds lit with stars. They spoke of virtues and vices not as moral checklists, but as living forces. Not metaphors, but beings, spirits woven into the warp and weft of the world. Thomas Aquinas saw this, called them agents of divine power, streaks of grace running like veins of silver through the rock of creation. They’re not just habits to be picked up like good manners; they’re channels, conduits for the breath of God Himself, working miracles, steadying the natural order, ensuring that His will isn’t just spoken but walked in, not just whispered but stitched into the very cloth of reality.Take humility. Today it’s mistaken for softness, for a kind of cowardice dressed up as politeness. But real humility is a weight—a gravity that pulls you down to the ground, roots you where you stand. It’s not the sag of a broken man but the stance of one who knows where he comes from and where he’s going. The proud man floats, puffed up, untethered, carried by every whim. But the humble man knows he’s small, and that knowing makes him strong—an anchor in the seabed, steady while the waters swirl round. Humility isn’t self-loathing; it’s the lifeline which keeps our soul from being cast adrift.And virginity—what a word to drop into the middle of this age of excess. Not just bodies untouched, but hearts undivided. The modern mind scoffs, as if restraint were a relic, as if to keep something sacred were a kind of fear. But ancient peoples saw it differently. They saw it as power—not absence, but presence. The unploughed field holds the richest soil. The sky, when it’s clear of clouds, reveals the deepest stars. Virginity isn’t a gap; it’s a vessel uncracked, ready to brim over with something holy.Modesty, too, has been gutted, turned into a checklist about hems and sleeves, rules for what should be covered rather than a wisdom about what should be treasured. But modesty isn’t about hiding; it’s about holding. The art of mystery is knowing that not every treasure should be laid bare. The pearl keeps its beauty because it stays hidden in the shell. The fire burns hottest when it’s banked, not scattered to every wind. Modesty is the virtue that keeps the sacred, sacred—it shields the flame from the careless gust.Prudence—now there’s a word that’s lost its place at the table. It’s been misunderstood as timidity, as fence-sitting, when really it’s the sharpest of knives. Prudence is clear sight, not the squint of fear but the wide-eyed gaze that sees things as they are and as they can be. It’s the captain reading the winds, knowing when to hoist the sail and when to reef it. The prudent man doesn’t avoid storms; he studies the sky, knows the waters, feels the shift in the air. Prudence isn’t caution—it’s mastery over impulse, the wisdom to see that not every current or causeway leads to home.Sobriety—often mistaken for dullness, as if the sober man is the one missing out while the world spins in bright colors around him. But sobriety isn’t the absence of joy; it’s the presence of depth. It’s laughter that doesn’t need to be loud to be true, delight that isn’t chased but dwells quietly. The sober heart isn’t parched—it’s steady. It drinks from a deeper well, one that doesn’t run dry when the party’s over.And wisdom—that old, thorny vine, twisting through time, often ignored but always there, like roots beneath the frost line. Wisdom isn’t just knowing things; it’s understanding the weight of them. It’s the difference between holding a golden cup and knowing the cup’s story—where it’s been, what it’s weathered, what it means. Wisdom carries the scent of the earth, the hush of old woods, the ache of truths learned the hard way. It doesn’t shout. It waits.Truth, too, has been twisted, turned into a weapon or a fashion. But truth isn’t a sword to be brandished; it’s a mirror to be faced. Truth, ultimately, is the God-man Himself: Jesus. Not an idea, but a person. Not a theory, but a face. You meet Him first in the quiet of your own heart before you ever hold Him up to others. He doesn’t argue. He is. Immutable as a mountain, tender as bread broken in trembling hands.And now… let’s stand in the bright, flickering carnival of social media—our modern marketplace of vanity and outrage. Here, virtues are relics, dusty and irrelevant, wingless. Who speaks with modesty when the whole platform is designed to scream, “Look at me”? Who practices prudence in a world that rewards the quickest take, the loudest voice? Who seeks wisdom when attention spans are measured in seconds and outrage pays better than understanding?But maybe that’s the point. Maybe in a world addicted to spectacle, the quiet, steady reliance on the virtues is the true rebellion. Maybe faith, humility, chastity—words that sound antiquated and out of place—are exactly what the modern soul is starving for. Virtues aren’t quaint. They’re radical. They’re not soft—they’re seismic. They shake the foundations of a world built on fleeting applause.The second Reformation, if it’s coming—and I feel it rumbling beneath our feet—won’t be born from cleverness or novelty. It’ll rise from the old truths we’ve buried but never killed. It won’t be a revolution of new ideas but of rediscovery, of remembering the deep roots we thought we’d outgrown. It’ll come when we’re not paying attention, a seed cracking open in the dark, roots first, reaching down before it reaches up.Because the nature of things doesn’t change. The soul still hungers for meaning, no matter how much noise we feed it. The heart still aches for beauty, even when we drown it in distraction. The spirit still longs for God, even when we pretend we’ve moved beyond such things.Virtues aren’t artifacts. They’re anchors. They hold us fast when the tides of culture shift and swirl. They’re not rules to follow but companions on the road, agents of grace, walking with us, strong as old growth trees, steady as the northern star. They’re the breath of God in the bones of the world, the heartbeat beneath the noise.The rich, the powerful, the influencers with their curated lives and glossy feeds—they rise, wave-like, dramatic and loud, catching the light for a moment. But waves fall. Always. The sea remains.So in the quiet, when the screens go dark, when the noise fades, ask yourself: What remains? What endures when the applause dies, when the spotlight moves on?The answer has always been the same. It’s not found in what you’ve gathered, but in what you’ve been given by God. Not in how brightly you’ve shone, but in how deeply you’ve rooted yourself in His Christ. Not in the fleeting, but in the faithful kindness of your Maker.In the end, it’s not that the world has changed so much. It’s that we’ve forgotten how to see it. The virtues were never lost. We just stopped looking. —D.

First, credit to Paul Kingsnorth and Mary Harrington for the topic. They are a wellspring of thought-provoking inspiration. Now… The great post-Enlightenment revolution that promised to unshackle the mind from superstition and lead us into an age of reason has, in its end, given us a world gripped by its own decadence. We've spent centuries in a brave, frenetic race to divorce ourselves from a truth deeper than the mind's ability to comprehend, all the while building false towers of science and technology in our bid for ultimate control. The moment of "Enlightenment" became the moment when everything was atomized and reduced to measure, to numbers, to a dull, materialistic existence that only ever seemed to lead to greater alienation. And yet, something is quietly, even powerfully, shifting in the modern psyche— something ancient, something true— quietly rising from beneath the hushed noise of the last few centuries of materialism. This great experiment, built on the Cartesian delusion that we can break the world down to parts, and rule it, has come undone. The fruit is rotten, and we are tasting it. In the places where God’s Spirit once spoke boldly, now we hear only hollow claims of progress, identity politics, and the fractured whims of individual will. It is a decadence wrapped in high-minded idealism, filled with the weight of ideological contradictions, and riddled with deep uncertainty about the value of life itself. What does it mean to be alive, to breathe, to be rooted in the soil of a tradition older than our years? The materialist vision cannot answer this. It can only ask what we measure, what is efficient, what is quantifiable. The invisible world—the reality we once understood through myth, symbol, and holy ritual—is nowhere to be found. So what happens when we become too hollow and thin for the mind to live within? What happens when we’ve spent so long pushing all that cannot be captured and boxed away with our devices that we begin to lose the thread of meaning? We fall back into that original quiet. The grand boast of materialism and its undergirding ideology of reason—that things can be measured, controlled, quantified—has fallen short. We see it on every front: in our politics, in our so-called “progress,” in the increasing unhappiness in even the richest corners of the world. Technology, once hailed as the liberator of mankind, has enslaved us— tricked us into thinking that convenience and speed will fulfill our deepest needs. It hasn’t. The moment we thought we could measure everything is the moment we forgot to measure the things that truly matter: the things which can’t be touched, counted, or digitized. The things which seem absent, yet are alive—beauty, grace, spirit, and the truth that reality is filled with breath and meaning. There is more to the world than the observable, more than the definable. We've become trapped by a glass box, in which we try to describe a world we don’t truly know. We’ve severed the connections to what keeps us bound to the earth, to the sky, and to each other, yet, it is these very connections that once gave meaning and direction to all things. Now, as the material world itself crumbles, we're awakening, though perhaps still blindfolded, to the return of the enchanted, the inspirited. What is spirituality if not this spirit—the anima of the world—that still beckons from the depths of every sacred moment and still cries for our awakening? There is nothing more real than this reality which encircles us but which we cannot measure. Make no mistake, we are entering a second Reformation, one far deeper than the last. This Reformation will not only sweep away the dead husks of a religious world corrupted by doctrine and political authority; it will strip us of the hardened, synthetic shells of meaning we have so skillfully manufactured through modernity’s broken lens. This coming return is not a blind return to the old ways for the sake of nostalgia or tradition but a return to the living essence of the world itself. It is a return to the truth that things do indeed have a nature— a depth beyond appearance, a truth that reaches far beyond the shiny falseness we’ve pursued so recklessly in recent centuries. Yes, nature speaks to us; it speaks without tongue but with thrum. There is a steady whisper carried on the wind, on the waves, in the forest’s hushed prayer— an enchantment buried within the hills and riverbeds, in the old myths of creation and destruction, woven through our ancestors' rituals and belief. It hums through us still, even as we have dismissed it for ages. And in time, just like the land’s reclamation after a long drought, so too will this truth reclaim what it never lost, never relinquished: its vitality. This spiritual truth is no abstraction, but an ancient reality— a reality that calls us back to connection. It stands directly against the fragmented, isolated subjectivity we’ve deluded ourselves with. True liberty lies in participation— not in self-will, but in participating with creation, with the divine, and yes— with the community of beings that stretch from the rooted earth to the high heavens. And at the crossroads where this battle is fought, we, who are bound together under the vast canopy of all-encompassing truth, must hold firm to a belief older than reason itself. A belief in the rootedness of the world’s soul, in its holy consistency even when everything is shaken. For the war between materialism and the spiritual reality of things is a great one— but in the end, it is not we who will make the final blow. Here, beneath the weight of this upheaval, something is beginning to stir in us. Those whose hearts have long been scattered in search of meaning, lost amidst the vain promises of secular ideologies and blind constructions of the world, are awakening. And when the material system finally meets its end— as it surely must— we shall rise, like the returning spring, to breathe once again in a world both real and divine, where nothing is lost to us, and nothing is ever wasted. And as we rise again from the ash of this failed revolution, the chains of the modern world shall fall from us, undone by the very power they tried to dismiss. In this second Reformation, we shall live, with eyes wide open to the light of what we were never meant to forget: That there is something more— much more— than what we see. And in that understanding, we shall begin to measure not by counting or dividing, but by receiving and participating. And so the Age of Enchantment shall return— and this time it will endure. —D.

Steel, Cloth & Waging the Hidden War I saw a read a missive on Substack recently by Matthew Herman Hudson that critiqued the claim that Christianity needs “less passive monks and more active knights.” To think the monk’s labor is passive, a withdrawal from the struggle that defines this world, is to see with dim sight and hear with a stopped ear. Such a view shrinks the spiritual into a shallow mirror of the material. For even at the surface—the realm of flesh, stone, and letters—monks have been the lifeblood of the church since the days of Constantine. Their hands copied the scriptures, built the churches, tilled the land, and served the sick. Their words taught reformers, kings, and common folk. They crafted counterweights to pride and sloth, not in lofty disdain but in painful and deliberate denial of the very excess that tempts every human soul. And beyond this visible realm, their prayers, chants, and unbroken vigils batter the gates of heaven. Who among us, walking through modern light and noise, even fathoms what such prayers hold back or call forth? To imagine monastic work as lesser, as idle musings beside the knight’s charge into battle, is to misunderstand both knight and monk. Both are bound to a fight, but one’s battleground may be inward and the other outward. The monk guards the foundations of the world as the knight wields his sword for its survival. This misunderstanding, I suspect, comes from an itch born of modernity. The world, skeptical and blunt, distrusts the unseen. Machines hum; steel cuts; the airwaves tell stories of heroes whose weapons clatter in the din of war. The subtle weapons, the fasting, the kneeling, the holy words whispered in silence, appear useless. The hero of the world must spill blood to prove his worth. But have we grown so blind to old truths? The Scriptures speak plainly of the contest in heaven, of the war not against flesh and bone but against rulers, powers, and dominions unseen. Christ Himself withdrew to deserts, mountain tops, and gardens, not to shirk His call but to strengthen His heart for the final sacrifice. Did He not fast for forty days, battered by Satan’s temptations, standing firm as the Adam who would not fall? And what of Paul, whose words on the “full armor of God” still rattle through the Christian soul? Truth girds the waist, righteousness shields the heart, and the sword, sharper than any iron blade, is the Word that cuts clean through falsehood. The fight we call “spiritual” is as bitter and unrelenting as the clash of armies, and if anything, its weapons bite deeper. Knights wield steel to cut down men; monks take up the cross to mortify the self. Do not mistake mortification for weakness—it takes far greater strength to defeat oneself than to kill a foe. And here, within this daily death, lies the heart of the monk’s work. For in dying to pride, lust, and every grasping passion, the monk undermines the kingdom of hell. Even the ancients knew the gravity of this unseen fight. Long before Christ spoke in Judea, pagans grasped after heavenly hierarchies. The Norse sagas spoke of Asgard and Jotunheim, a layered cosmos bound by struggle. The Greeks warred their gods in stars and clouds; the Hebrews placed thrones, dominions, and seraphim at the peak of creation. And when the Son of Man walked the earth, He did not abolish such truths but fulfilled and revealed them. In His name, Gabriel still delivers messages to the lowly, and Michael still hews down the prince of Persia. This cosmos—full and flaming with meaning—is as far from our machine-built wastelands as heaven is from hell. The rise of secular power has not silenced the fight but drowned it in noise. Modern warfare no longer follows battle cries but clicks and transactions. Souls are not struck down in combat; they erode under streams of temptation, thin and ceaseless. Bread is discarded; circuses now shine on screens. The world whispers the lie that this life’s struggles—our afflictions, temptations, and triumphs—are without weight, part of a meaningless drift. But the church, bound to her Bridegroom, stands against this drift. Her steeples, which once towered above every town, do not symbolize pride. They mark the upward pull of belief, the meeting point of earthly toil and heaven’s calling. Every sacrament is an act of defiance—a claim that water holds rebirth, bread and wine turn flesh and blood, and words have power when spoken by authority. Each stained window, chalice, and vestment serves as a battlefield where meaning is reclaimed from chaos. Knights, monks, saints—each took their stand in different ways. In times of barbarian invasion, it was the knight’s steel and flesh that shielded Christendom. In ages of spiritual decay, it was the monk’s robe and ink that sustained the heart of the faith. Today’s war may appear less bloody, but it is no less brutal. Our enemies are not outside the gates—they are in the walls, in the language, in the symbols twisted from their God-given roots. Against this flood, the church must hold her ground. Men look to their forefathers in this war because meaning requires anchors. Tradition gives us strength not out of nostalgia but because it is forged in the fires of centuries. The Mass does not dull the heart—it sharpens it against the world’s cheap imitations of beauty. Ritual and liturgy, misunderstood as empty repetition, are in truth ancient weapons. The words of the Creed hold more power than the clamor of politics; the reading of the Scriptures breaks chains unseen. To kneel, to stand, to lift hands in the prayers of old, is to rehearse the movements of warriors in God’s cause. To stand at this crossroads of belief and conflict is to recognize what is demanded of both body and spirit. We wear this armor not to triumph by our strength but by God’s mercy. Ritual becomes not an adornment, but the scaffolding holding us firm against forces that grind bones to dust. And where does that leave the modern monk, the warrior in a world awash in screens and sirens? It leaves him with the same call as those before: to fight, though his battlefields are hidden and his victories unseen. His prayers build unseen citadels; his abstinence wounds the empire of the flesh. And for the knight whose heart burns with zeal to act—he, too, must be guided by the monk’s hand. For God, in His wisdom, never set monk against knight or tradition against zeal. He wove them together as differing weapons in His vast arsenal. The knight, armed with sword and shield, must learn the humility to lay them down when called to prayer. And the monk, hands clasped in vigil, must trust that his brothers at the gates wield their weapons not for glory but for God. Whether in chainmail or a rough robe, on the battlefield or in the cloister, every soldier in this kingdom wages the same war. For as long as there is a heaven and an earth, a Christ and a church, there will be a fight to preserve their bond against those who seek to sever it.

Apocalypse speaks not only of fire and destruction; it pulls back the veil, it bares what has always been lying underneath. Beneath the floodwaters, beneath the inferno’s roar, lies a revelation. They are stories of uncovering—not chaos—but the unlit truths buried under the veneers of our comfort, truths we kept at arm’s length for as long as the years would let us. - Donavon L Riley Link to full text: https://thewarriorpriestpodcast.wordpress.com/2025/01/15/0221-midweek-debrief-signs-of-collapse-and-the-path-forward/

In these times, when the world is hungrier than ever for quick fixes, we must ask ourselves: what if the trouble isn’t something to be solved at all, but something to be faced with a turn back to the heart of what’s real? — D.

It gets sacred in the places where you have been torn open, where you’ve bled and felt abandoned. This is the quiet power of Christmas: not that it erases the ache, but that it enters into it with a tenderness fierce enough to hold what’s broken. You are held, not despite the pain, but because of it. The grace that comes is not the smooth salve, but the living wound itself, kissed by the presence of God who never runs from the darkness but embraces it, calling it holy.

What's up with the talk about re-enchantment lately? Why are people interested in “re-enchanting the world”? What’s at stake in the question and what is expected by those who pursue it? What good are old stories and are we prepared to risk our lives to find meaning and purpose?

Perhaps God does not want us to be modern because modernity too often blinds us to the eternal. In our rush to build, invent, and achieve, we forget to behold, to wonder, to worship. We lose the ability to see the sacred in the ordinary: the bread on the table, the sun rising over a field, the child laughing in a garden. These are not obstacles to progress; they are reminders of a deeper reality, a reality that modernity often seeks to obscure.

What was once called “woke” has splintered into an anarchic patchwork of terms that don’t make sense unless you’ve swallowed the Kool-Aid and been dumped into a pit of postmodern nonsense. “Critical social justice,” “identity politics,” “gender studies,” “fourth-wave feminism”—the list grows like a mutant vine, changing shape faster than a bad acid trip. Every new label that’s thrown into the mix isn’t here to clarify; it’s here to disarm you, to scramble your mind, to keep the truth from ever getting a foothold. It’s all smoke and mirrors, folks. Nothing is what it seems, and the words we use to talk about the world only serve to keep us in the dark.

History is dead.  Or, so I was told. For a long time, I believed it. Not because I wanted to, but I could see the world around me. It was plain as day that I did not live in the world of my heroes. Myth and legend had ended, history had marched to its lackluster end, and we were all fated to live out our days in a lethargic, decaying, neo-liberal hellscape. Consume product. Work for corporation. Vote. Die. The banal reality of the modern west seems almost designed to crush the very souls of its populace. We grew up in a world where nothing ever happens and there is nothing left to discover. - The Saxon Cross Link: https://thesaxoncross.substack.com/p/mythologizing-modernity

When, because of their fear, they do away secretly with such men, who is left for them to use save the unjust, the incontinent, and the slavish? The unjust are trusted because they are afraid, just as the tyrants are, that someday the cities, becoming free, will become their masters. The incontinent are trusted because they are at liberty for the present, and the slavish because not even they deem themselves worthy to be free. This affliction, then, seems harsh to me: to think some are good men, and yet to be compelled to make use of the others. - Xenophon, Tyrannicus part 5

Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses, and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. - George Carlin

"Humanity had thought itself sufficient, and even now we think we can escape our destiny by our own efforts. Escape!--that is our only thought. To escape from the insanity, the hell of modern life is all we wish. But we cannot escape!!! We must go through this hell, and accept it, knowing it is the love of God that causes our suffering. What terrible anguish!--to suffer so, not knowing why, indeed thinking there is no reason. The reason is God's love--do we see it blazing in the darkness? -- we are blind." Fr. Seraphim Rose

So what will we do? Will we remain on the shore, dipping our toes in the water now and then, or will we plunge in, fully, recklessly, trusting that this river will carry us where we need to go? That is what true love is—it is a surrender, a letting go of our need to control, to manage, to predict. It is a wild rumpus, a leap into the unknown, a cry that travels through forests and over fields, and shakes the very earth beneath our feet. And in this love, we will find that indifference has no place. It cannot survive in the rushing waters of a soul that is fully alive, fully attuned to the presence of Love, the Christ-Savior - Donavon L Riley 

You may remember the Green Knight arriving at Camelot after fifteen days straight of feasting. King Arthur has asked for a story so that the tribe could remember itself but none of the assembled have the gumption to respond. A deeper story was required. Perfectly on time, the Green Knight bursts through the door. In the act of being beheaded but then continuing to live, the Green Knight brings a terrible but familiar, biblical question: “Who will lose their life to find it?”

I go on a walkabout through life and death, saying what needs to be said, taking our human condition seriously, and being thoughtful about the big picture.

The basic question in this vortex is whether man can be liberated from fear. This is far more important than arming or supplying him with medicines—for power and health are prerogatives of the unafraid. In contrast, the fear besets even those armed to the teeth— indeed, them above all. The same may be said for those on whom abundance has been rained. The threat cannot be exorcized by weapons or fortunes—these are no more than means. - Ernst Junger, The Forest Passage

"To the extent that propaganda is based on current news, it cannot permit time for thought or reflection. A man caught up in the news must remain on the surface of the event; he is carried along in the current, and can at no time take a respite to judge and appreciate; he can never stop to reflect. There is never any awareness -- of himself, of his condition, of his society -- for the man who lives by current events. Such a man never stops to investigate any one point, any more than he will tie together a series of news events.  We already have mentioned man's inability to consider several facts or events simultaneously and to make a synthesis of them in order to face or to oppose them. One thought drives away another; old facts are chased by new ones. Under these conditions there can be no thought. And, in fact, modern man does not think about current problems; he feels them. He reacts, but be does not understand them any more than he takes responsibility for them. He is even less capable of spotting any inconsistency between successive facts; man's capacity to forget is unlimited.  This is one of the most important and useful points for the propagandist, who can always be sure that a particular propaganda theme, statement, or event will be forgotten within a few weeks. Moreover, there is a spontaneous defensive reaction in the individual against an excess of information and -- to the extent that he clings (unconsciously) to the unity of his own person -- against inconsistencies. The best defense here is to forget the preceding event. In so doing, man denies his own continuity; to the same extent that he lives on the surface of events and makes today's events his life by obliterating yesterday's news, he refuses to see the contradictions in his own life and condemns himself to a life of successive moments, discontinuous and fragmented." - Jacques Ellul, Propaganda 

Propaganda is made, first of all, because of a will to action, for the purpose of effectively arming policy and giving irresistible power to its decisions.* Whoever handles this instrument can be concerned solely with effectiveness This is the supreme law. which must never be forgotten when the phenomenon of propaganda is analyzed. Ineffective propaganda is no propaganda. This instrument belongs to the technological universe, shares its characteristics. and is indissolubly linked to it. - Jaques Ellul, Propaganda Link: https://ia801202.us.archive.org/11/items/Propaganda_201512/Propaganda.pdf

No pressure, no diamond. You don’t become a good captain by never meeting a storm. And so, at the end of your life – many years from now God willing – there is but one tree, vines threaded gloriously and ramshackley together – holy in its way – offering you a place to sit down and rest awhile, its branches sagging under the weight of timeless fruit produced to settle your restless stomach. 

No matter how much we love the city, or our home, or the land, they will never love us back. They do not give birth to hope. They destroy us in the pursuit of it. And so, to survive you must learn to recognize those who don’t hope, who aren’t really alive, and be wary of their doomed decisions. They are to be avoided at all costs because their fear is tragedy's closest cousin, and tragedy is contagious. And then, just like that, death steps from the shadows, and hope is strangled. Life is extinguished. Freedom is chained up. 

The complaint of the depressive individual, “Nothing is possible,” can only occur in a society that thinks, “Nothing is impossible.” No-longer-being-able-to-be-able leads to destructive self-reproach and auto-aggression. The achievement-subject finds itself fighting with itself. The depressive has been wounded by internalized war. Depression is the sickness of a society that suffers from excessive positivity. It reflects a humanity waging war on itself. - Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society

Like is the digital Amen. When we click Like, we are bowing down to the order to domination. The smartphone is not just an effective surveillance apparatus; it is also a mobile confessional. - Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics

“That kindness is invincible, provided it's sincere- not ironic or an act. What can even the most vicious person do if you keep treating him with kindness and gently set him straight” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

We are mud people with a holy breath sweeping through us. That is a comfort, Jesus says. Not tree people so much, or zebra people, or pomegranate people, but mud people. There is a primality in it. It is an image we can get behind. It is not nice. It is not a florid Renaissance sketch, but something we can imagine seeing daubed on a cave wall before someone blows the wick out. 

“What is addiction, really? It is a sign, a signal, a symptom of distress. It is a language that tells us about a plight that must be understood.”  Alice Miller, Breaking Down the Wall of Silence

Technology is our new god. What would a refusal to worship look like? Paul Kingsnorth offers a vision of resistance, which I discuss in this week's episode.

If God gave us what we asked for all at once, it would wipe us out. Too much reality. We have to chew on one piece of manna at a time. God’s announcements to the heart are so prestigious that too much and we are floored. And there are lots more that feel nutty and restrictive in their eccentricity. Then a year later or more and that, in turn, blossoms into bare, unadorned wisdom. So be wary of begging God to make too many pronouncements, to act for you too early. One simply doesn’t know the power of unadorned facts until they descend upon us like a heavenly storm. 

“I myself have resolved to follow the path of righteousness henceforth. More than anything, devote yourself to learning and act in accordance with the teachings of the past.” - Katsu Kokichi, Musui's Story

“I realized that this was true for both China and Japan: every one of those who had been brought to ruin or lost their lands had been punished by Heaven for neglecting the proprieties between sovereign and subject, the bond of affection between parent, child, and brother, and for wallowing in greed and extravagance. All the more wondrous, then, that I have survived thus far without mishap. Indeed, I am overwhelmed by the mercy and goodness of Heaven that I even hesitate to show my face to my fellow men.” - Katsu Kokichi, Musui's Story

It was not long then until there was the spirit coming, by God’s power, the holy breath, going under the hard stone to the corpse! Light was at that moment opened up, for the good of the sons of men. The many bolts of Hell were unlocked. The road from this world up to heaven was built. Brilliantly radiating, in such a way that the guards, tough soldiers, were not at all aware of when he got up from death and arose from his rest.

Many and powerful are the agents who would bar the door to the key to the universe, many who would throw a veil over him. Moses, you recall, was hard to see. David, perhaps more so. None of this has been easy. And yet there lies between us and Jesus two-thousand years of war, famine, disease, and death. Jesus is God. He is the turning point of history, which is why there is no more misinterpreted or maligned or slandered figure. And, most of us have a bone to pick with Jesus too.  Where can we be with God in this season of death? We pray for help, some daily, and a few, many more times than that. We ask for a heart that is ready to receive God. “Help me, Jesus,” we beg. “Give me some direction.”  “Or, maybe, you can’t.” The unspoken prayer. 

Those who do not want to live under God’s government will not be forced to. That would erase the principle of love upon which the cosmos is founded — no one will be sent away from the presence of God who wants to stay. So God’s people have prayed for millennia that there will be no such people. But we know it happens, and that there are too many to name.  Why would anyone want to turn away from God? There are many ways, but rather than try to explain, we pray instead for repentance, and that they, like us, would be transformed. We pray that they may be saved, yes, but even more than that, we pray that they may be changed, to become, in a word, like God. 

David was a stone in the path upon which the Paradise King trod.  This King is the earth shaker. He is the cloud rider. He is the guardian of widows and orphans, and a servant-king who withholds nothing from his people. His face is young, yet old beyond the reckoning of this or any age, for he hails from eternity past. It is a beautiful face, full of humility and adoration and power. And he is crowned with purest golden light. He is the morning star and his eyes burn. They blaze with immortal fires, and there is laughter there, laughter and springtime and joy enough to set the whole cosmos to singing.

After his death, the people waited for a prophet like Moses to appear because Moses had told them to watch. “Yahweh your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers.” Moses had said, “To him, you will listen.”  And so, the invitation is in front of you too, to hear him. “Come,” Jesus says, “and follow me. Come and learn how to live. Come with me, and I will heal your heart. Follow me, and I will make you human again.” Many before you have accepted the invitation. There is Paul, the persecutor, who saw Jesus on the throne of God and was blinded by the revelation. There is Polycarp, whose blood put out the fire. There is Irenaeus, who stood like a lighthouse on the edge of a stormy sea, and the waves were perversions of the Gospel of Jesus, and yet he did not yield. There is George, the red-crossed knight, who offered up his head to an emperor rather than renounce his faith. There is Ephraim the Syrian, John the Golden Mouth, and the Venerable Bede. They are your ancestors. They are your family. They have passed the Good News of Jesus from door to door, from generation to generation, like small buckets of sacred treasure. Now, at last, it comes to you, and it is time for your hearts to expand with the inexhaustible joy of God’s love; the love of him who leads you through the Sea of Death onto the welcoming shores of Paradise. 

The gods came down. Slinking, slithering, prowling, whispering, they sought out earthly kings. And so, Pharaoh Merneptah heard a voice in the dark and the voice said his name. He woke, and there was Ptah with a plan. The old kings of Uruk also were tutored. Ayala had the fish creature, Adapa, for an advisor. Alaglar had Uanduga from the sea. In his time, Hammurabi met Shammash, and from that god recovered the knowledge the flood had destroyed. The trend never stopped. Descartes saw lights in his tent, and a creature gave him his method. Oppenheimer set off his bomb, and Krishna spoke, “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” These had a plan: to rule and remake humanity. The ruling was easily done. The remaking was harder. Harder, but not impossible.  The enemy has always worked to remake humanity in its image, an image of ancient jealousy and ravenous pride. 

... we must start in the most difficult place: in the beginning. We have to start where the story is not broken or befouled, when wild waves cooled sun-soaked shores and the choruses of birds carried over ebony cliffs, who knows how far.  It was a wild world, all welter and waste. Unrestrained rivers carved crooked lines across sprawling green plains. The earth birthed bejeweled fruit, and untended forests clawed in vain at the roots of mountains. And God loved it, because he created it.  That is just a small part of the story of the Bereshit, the “beginning” as the Hebrews call it. It is an old story, the first story told by God, and God is very old, and he is not always easy to understand. But, old things are often hard to understand.  For this reason, old stories are abandoned, because they allude us. New stories take their place, stories that are not so wild, or weird, or hard to hear. In general, the more remote a story is, and the more work we must do to understand it, the more likely it is that it will suffer mishandling. And almost every witch, sorcerer, scientist, and pseudo-philosopher has some interest in mishandling this story. It is not hard to see why. In the beginning, you see the end. If you want to control how the story concludes, you attack it at the very start. - Donavon L Riley. Homily on Creation 

Almost everyone can agree that one of the big differences between us and our ancestors of five hundred years ago is that they lived in an “enchanted” world, and we do not; at the very least, we live in a much less “enchanted” world. We might think of this as our having “lost” a number of beliefs and the practices which they made possible. But more, the enchanted world was one in which these forces could cross a porous boundary and shape our lives, psychic and physical. One of the big differences between us and them is that we live with a much firmer sense of the boundary between self and other. We are “buffered” selves. We have changed. – Charles Taylor, Buffered and Porous Selves Almost everyone can agree that one of the big differences between us and our ancestors of five hundred years ago is that they lived in an “enchanted” world, and we do not; at the very least, we live in a much less “enchanted” world. We might think of this as our having “lost” a number of beliefs and the practices which they made possible. But more, the enchanted world was one in which these forces could cross a porous boundary and shape our lives, psychic and physical. One of the big differences between us and them is that we live with a much firmer sense of the boundary between self and other. We are “buffered” selves. We have changed. – Charles Taylor, Buffered and Porous Selves Article Link: https://tif.ssrc.org/2008/09/02/buffered-and-porous-selves/

This is the profound morality of fairy-tales; which, so far from being lawless, go to the root of all law. Instead of finding (like common books of ethics) a rationalistic basis for each Commandment, they find the great mystical basis for all Commandments. We are in this fairyland on sufferance; it is not for us to quarrel with the conditions under which we enjoy this wild vision of the world. The vetoes are indeed extraordinary, but then so are the concessions.  - G.K. Chesterton, Fairy Tales 

The Way of combat strategy can be likened to the craft of carpentry. Comparing samurai with carpenters is related to the subject of “houses.” We speak of noble houses, warrior houses and the “Four Houses.”  We also talk of the collapse or continuation of a house. In the arts we refer to a school or tradition as a house. It is because the label “house” is employed as such that I draw parallels with the carpenter’s Way. The word “carpenter” (dai-ku) is written with the two ideograms meaning “great” and “craft.” The Way of combat strategy is also a “great craft,” which is why I relate it to the carpenter’s endowments. Study the content of these scrolls carefully if you seek to become accomplished in the craft of war. Train assiduously, with the teacher serving as the needle and the student as the thread. Miyamoto Musashi, Book of Five Rings