The Sad State of Affairs

For the most part the watchmen are no more. Some just grew weary and disillusioned and out of utter frustration abandoned the watchtower, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t blame them. I’ve been there, experienced the frustration, constantly feeling as though I was just screaming into the void, having my words misunderstood, being made to wonder why I put myself through it all, if perhaps I’m just an intellectual masochist who needs to feel pain to know he’s alive. But, since I’ve never been a quitter, and there are extenuating circumstances to consider such as standing before God one day, I press on, each day wearier than its predecessor, taking delight in the little things life offers when they are offered.

Others, more shrewd and self-serving absconded as well, but not before ransacking the castle treasury and taking as much as they could carry. Either way, the end result is no more watchmen on the wall, and that ought to be a thing of great concern for all.

Meanwhile the people of the city revel as though the enemy were not at the gate, and as though they were not in imminent and mortal danger. Even though something doesn’t feel right, most choose to ignore it, finding more distractions to fill their time rather than seriously consider what is happening all around them. Sometimes truth itself is overwhelming. The magnitude of it, the sheer force of it, will often paralyze an individual for an instant or for the rest of their lives depending on their constitution, but I would rather have the truth than the lie any day of the week.

I have epiphanies in the strangest places. One such place was an asylum for the mentally insane in Romania, during a visit to see how we could help, whether monetarily, with foodstuffs, clothes, or any other things we had available at the time.

The doctor in charge asked if I would like a tour, and since I’d never been to an insane asylum before I nodded in the affirmative, and we began the walkthrough. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I grew up in the early nineties, and snuck over to the neighbors often enough to watch television to have formed an opinion as to what I was going to see. It was nothing like that. Yes, some of the residents were obviously disturbed, but most were just sitting alone by themselves, either drawing or playing with some object or another.

There was one woman that drew my eye, not because of how she looked, but because of what she was doing. She looked normal enough, had on a bathrobe, and her hair was combed, but she was standing in the corner and bleating like a sheep. The whole time we talked, the whole time we walked through the recreational area, this woman did not move, she just stood in the corner, facing the wall, and bleated.

‘Does she ever stop I asked the doctor?’

‘Not unless she’s heavily medicated,’ he answered, ‘what else does she have to do anyway?’

That’s when I had my epiphany. What else do the instigators, flame throwers, baiters, the professionally offended, and the litigiously prone have to do?

Other than the clear departure from godliness, one of the things that has brought about the sad state of affairs we currently find ourselves in is that we’ve given ear to the crazies, and not only that but convinced them that they are not in fact crazy, but perfectly sane when calling for the wholesale slaughter of one ethnic group or another, the murder of unborn babies without apology, the destruction of the family, or a dozen other things that I would rather not go into because I’m about to put my daughter to bed, and I want to be able to smile at her.

We pander to the lowest common denominator, and elevate them to celebrity status.

Case and point, there are tens upon tens of thousands of men and women serving in the armed forces, and honorably so, and other than the thirty second blurb from time to time informing us that they are not being given the medical attention and treatment they rightly deserve for having served this country, they are rarely mentioned.

One of them decides to put on a skirt, some lipstick and some eyeliner, and he gets an hour long special on one of the premiere news outlets of this nation.

Are you married with children working hard just to get by? Eh, so what, you’re boring.

Are you barely twelve, unwed, and on your second pregnancy? Perfect! We’ll give you a television show.

And so, the state of affairs gets sadder still, until it did not surprise me one bit when an effeminate fellow called me a breeder under his breath as he attempted to sit my family and I in a restaurant recently.

Two cheers for progress. Hip! Hip!

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.