We have carefully tended the garden of our selfishness.
We have demanded and craved, recklessly sought all we desired, and we have it!
Our heart’s desire and misery.
We have emancipated ourselves from You, only to fall prey to every other master,
to the tyranny of self.
Who can be found for us to blame?
Who can we accuse for this fruit of our own labor?
We feel no shame, we have forgotten how to blush.
We rage at those who would caution us in our folly.
We curse and denounce all who try to restrain our stumbling to slaughter.
We cultivate greed with tenderness, indulging ourselves
until we are swollen and staggering.
This is happiness. This is my way.
We flee from silence and stillness afraid of what we may find.
We shudder in terror of ourselves
The torrent of our words drowns out thought.
The rage of our anger and insecurity pours forth.
In this wave, wisdom is washed away.
This way seems right to us, we care not that its end is death.
For it is seeming, not being, which counts in this nation.
What is truth here?
A tool. A weapon. A power.
Not to overthrow oppression, but to change oppressors.
We do not serve truth; truth serves us and our ends.
We have torn down.
We have clawed our way free.
We have stormed to the heights.
Now we sit amidst the rubble our hands have made.
With righteous pride, we destroy ourselves, our families, our nations.
But we shall win!
For we are the wise, the right.
This one sacred truth we never assail.
Come let us celebrate the victory of our folly!
For we don’t realize we ought to grieve.
We would rather be victorious among the ashes, than humble among the heavens.
Come, let us lie to ourselves and to each other.
Let us believe that darkness can be light, that evil can be good, that bitter is sweet.
For God is a delusion; we shall save ourselves.
Let us believe!
For we no longer believe in anything.
Shall evil come openly, or as an angel of light?
Which evil shall triumph?
Shall it be the Lesser or the Greater?
Shall we sing to celebrate Our evil’s victory?
Shall we grieve the victory of Their evil?
Should we not rather mourn evil in all its guises?
Shall we not grieve that it has come to this?
When we have destroyed what wiser hands have made,
perhaps we shall remember you.
When we have laid in the miserable bed we have made,
perhaps we shall look for better.
When we have eaten the fruit of our way, and tasted its bitterness,
perhaps we shall hunger anew for your way.
For there is Hope.
There is a better way.
But it is not found among these peddlers of words.
Whichever evil shall prevail, we shall mourn.
This new religion of politics is a poor one, and is not ours.
Our Hope resides not there.
While we mourn, yet shall we hope.
Whichever evil shall govern us for the present, the Son shall rise over us and all shall be well.
Until then, we join hands with any to do good, and none to do evil.
Our allegiance shall not be partisan or wholesale, but of Christ and His kingdom.