Scroll down and read my post “Rise Above.” This is “Rise Above. Part 2.” I had talked about how the Eagle rises above crows. In this post, I will talk more about the crows of our society, as to why it is so important to take the mindset of rising above them.
This is the second dark age, immeasurably worse than the first, like hell in comparison to heaven. Outside of the minority of still existing traditional societies who still act like human beings, the majority no longer do. We act like zombies, once human, now dead, but still quasi-alive. Most people deep down are willing to murder if their life depends on it, in extreme circumstances. Most people are ok sometimes lying, cheating, stealing, and intentionally harming the innocent.
And therefore very few today, in comparison say to the 1950’s, when having done something objectively wrong, that wrongs others, will ever genuinely apologize, take accountability, or apologize.
So by crows we are also dealing with monsters who behave like zombies. Rising above them, then, goes beyond situations like escaping poverty, healing from serious illness, or moving from a communist country to a democratic country. Rising above now is akin to Christians during the first dark age moving to live near monasteries, to how St. Benedict himself fled decadent Rome to go live in a cave in the wilderness. It is akin to Mel Gibson’s character in Man Without a Face going late at night to a small grocery store run by an old couple to get his groceries just before they closed.
If you are like I am, or likely most readers here, then deep down our current society not only hates you to the core, or wants you dead, or to even stop existing, they wish your existence is absolutely wiped from the history books.
Rise above. Be very, very selective where you attend Mass, where you work, how you interact with people at work, what friends you make or keep, and even what time of day you shop at Walmart, if you want to avoid for your own peace of mind, year after year, decade after decade, the zombies, the crows. Crows are pests and typically congregate in excessively large groups.
Rise above. If you go to confession right down the road at your local Novus Ordo rite parish, as I sometimes do, get there very early to be first in line, to get out of there as quick as possible to avoid those who take 5-10 minutes to confess, girl altar servers setting up the sanctuary, or people hugging and chatting from the pew like the church is their own casual living room rather than a sacred place in which God dwells in as the “House of God.”
There is great peace after confessing, but that environment will suck it back out of you. Instead of procrastinating to get to confession late, rise above the material heretics and those committing sacrilege, and give yourself the serenity and freedom of getting in and out before the crows start coming into church.
Rise above traffic. It will take years off your life. Instead of getting mentally entangled hyper studying what cars are driving too fast or too slow, guys with a death wish on motorcycles zooming past you at a shocking 100 mph, or unbridled idiots tailgating you, which will never end, drive like grandma in the slow lane listening to Mozart thinking about hiking trips and God. Not them.
And rise above your neighbors. Whether you live in a neighborhood or apartment complex, or you are the kind to give a freshly baked apple pie to your neighbor, unless you want to be clinically depressed and in a state of angst about society, don’t. Statistically, the odds are above 90% they’ll think you’re weird. Practically speaking, in terms of neighbors, unless you live somewhere like a rural village in Mexico or Tibet, the phrase “nobody cares” is the truth.
Rise above family as well, that is any family member who lacks empathy for any struggles you go through, who habitually fail to help you out in life or give support, who have seriously harmed you in some way without showing remorse (example: sexual, physical, or grave mental abuse), or who do not follow your Faith and values, or at all respect you for it. With the breakdown of marriage and the domestic family, and therefore by extension the extended family, that means most people in your family, even the ones you enjoy drinking beer with at one of the few annual family gatherings, they are almost certainly a crow, a godless wordling, narcissistic, zombie.
It is, in truth, that bad. The Church has been flooded with heterodox or heretical people, especially the hierarchy. The House of God has been taken over by banality and sacrilege, and mainstream society has been taken over by people with dark triad personality disorders. And their enablers.
So rise above. As I keep endeavoring to do. Don’t isolate or reject society. But retreat, carve out your niche, keep carving out your niche, do whatever it takes to escape the crows, the spiritual and moral darkness, the flock of annoying crows, and flap your wings upward, soar, do everything you can, with God’s grace, to rise above, and find your place of serenity and freedom.
Like the Eagle.