ONLY ANGELS CAN SLAY DRAGONS

Purification of the American heart is the key to our worldly salvation.

Michael slaying the dragon

Today’s neofascist assault on our democracy is a curse on America, born of our decades of acquiescence to the moral recklessness of modern capitalism. It is a Frankenstein of our own making, and only we can uncreate it. It is a curse we brought upon ourselves.

When I was a child, the storybook pictures of a farmer on his tractor, happy businessman with his briefcase, factory workers driving the engine of our prosperity, mother cooking and taking care of her children, were more true than not. That was before the behemoth of unfettered corporate power ate America.

Agribusiness didn’t exactly take the tractor away, but it took away the farmer’s land, even his ability to fix his own tractor.

Huge, faceless corporations waged war against the independent businessman, economically bringing him to his knees with its nefarious dictate, “Play ball, or else.”

Factory workers watched with horrified indignity as factories that once paid them fairly, providing purpose and paycheck with which to support a family, were shuttered and sold off for parts.

Women - well women weren’t as happy as they looked in that picture - but the answer turned out not to be the suppression of the feminine in the name of feminism, or the invalidation of marriage and motherhood as a powerful life choice.

Before our economy crumbled, or our democracy crumbled, or our rules-based order crumbled, our allegiance to basic decency crumbled. Corporate power became America’s false god, its insatiable appetites fed at the expense of human beings trying to live a decent life. Politics became about power for those who had it, rather than service to those who did not. Trickle-down economics didn’t “lift all boats”; it left millions without even a life vest. Republicans started this trip to hell, but no Democrat ever stopped it.

The gods of the modern economy didn’t register the despair of those whose lives became kindling for this bonfire of its vanities. The “little people” lived, after all, on the other side of town. Millions who once felt like proud Americans were reduced to cogs in the wheels of institutionalized greed. A foul odor of human carelessness spread through neighborhoods like the breath of a beast, and people could smell it. Their diseases, even deaths of despair, were registered by the new power mongers not as screams of hopelessness and suffering - but rather sanitized as “social problems.” People tried to find help, but who was there to help them? Surely not the ones who promised them the most. What institution had not been bought off? A slow building fury grew among people who knew they were oppressed but didn’t know who to blame.

Both parties failed them. Both sacrificed their principles. Both fed the monster. Then he devoured them both. They are shells of their former selves.

No one should be surprised that there arose from that hot mess a false savior of the people. No one should be surprised by his obsession with gold and gilt. He’s merely a living expression of what power became in contemporary America. Until we accept that - acknowledge it in our hearts and atone for what has occurred here - he and his minions will only grow in power. He is our own shadow reflected on the screen of our lives, and like any image thus projected it cannot be removed by manipulating the screen.

Only angels can slay dragons. Angels are the thoughts of God, and demons are the thoughts of man when his heart turns cold. In an age of demons, summoning angels means nothing short of returning to our right minds. Stripping our politics, our economics, our very society of fundamental allegiance to the principles on which we purport to stand, the United States spiraled into moral darkness. Everything starts with consciousness, and only a consciousness of love - of justice, of doing right by people - is the compass that keeps us pointing towards America’s North Star.

Humility before a Higher Power, remorse for what we’ve been willing to countenance, atonement for our selfishness and contempt for those unlike us - such are the keys to America’s deliverance. God isn’t angry, He’s just not kidding. You can only betray love for so long before everything stops working.

Nothing short of the purification of the American heart will save us now. Spiritual renewal is the key to our worldly salvation. Atonement, prayer, forgiveness, love. With those things - with enough people truly understanding them and practicing their power - we will experience a miraculous new beginning. Without them, the end is near nye.