8/15/2016

My generation is a generation consumed with self-fulfillment, self-indulgence, self-satisfaction, self-realization, we are a generation consumed with ourselves. We seek, at all costs, to find the happiness (at the expense of all others) that we have been taught we deserve. My generation has found that its only hope lies in finding that fulfillment, satisfying one last desire, consuming one last product, finding the right one, the one that will make us happy and make us proud. Never has a generation of humans experienced so much psychological dysfunction, never has a generation of youths struggles so much with serious battles with depression, never has a generation had to struggle with determining sexual orientations as has ours. Our generation’s culture of sex and materialism has simply fueled the fire of self-love. In the midst of this upheaval of disoriented minds and passions, ours is a generation which finds its ultimate telos in the “making of yourself.” This tragedy of horror is destroying a civilization, a destruction that is at a pace with the self-destruction of the ancient city of Rome. That glorious city of culture, human advancements in art, science, philosophy, and government had never been seen as long as the world was spinning. Yet this ancient world, promising life beyond life, failed to see that life, no matter how advanced cannot sustain itself when it is consumed with itself. However, hope cannot be lost, for amidst the chaos of an oppressively greed-ridden America lies a generation of “the remnant” who have seen the products of our cultural assembly lines of materialism. They understand that if they were to remain as potential products on the assembly belt they will be shaped by an impersonal culture of productivity, which is ever-producing yet never realizing the fulfillment for want of hope. They understand the farce that hope should to be placed in ourselves. Gloriously, they have rejected the ever-invasive formulas of narcissism and as a result of the wisdom produced by the Spirit of God this remnant, the faithful body of Christ, has found refuge in the pages of ancient wisdom and devotion to the worship of that which is far greater than the present existence, the God of the Christian scriptures. They have seen and believed that a Divinity has caused the motions of this world, and they have understood that the pursuit of the Divinity is the final end-all of hope. Though my world places its meaning and worth in the here and now, those regenerated by the mighty power of the Spirit of God understand the words of their great Savior to “seek first the Kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things (the things to which my self-loving culture so desperately cleaves) will be added in the giving-graciousness of God’s merciful hand. To seek the Kingdom of God, a place of righteousness, justice, peace, loveliness, faithfulness, genuineness, holiness, is to understand the assurance of the hope only found in the person of God’s son. The hope of the remnant is found in a world outside the present frame, a world where the lame walk, where the blind see, where the deaf hear, where the diseased are healed, where the dumb speak, where the lion will lie down with the lamb, where its citizens with beat their swords into plowshares and the spears into pruning hooks, the glory of the Father will be the light that lights all men, and where the streets are paved with the purity of God’s righteous Son.