Paul Kingsnorth has a profound grasp of reality.
"I went searching, then, for the truth. But where to find it? Elders, saints, and mystics are notable these days for their absence. In their place we are offered a pick’n’mix spirituality, on sale in every market stall and pastel-shaded hippy web portal. A dreamcatcher, a Celtic cross, a book about tantra, a weekend drum workshop, and a pack of tarot cards with cats on them, and hey, presto: You’re ready for your personalized “spiritual” journey. On the other side, you will find no exhortation to sacrifice or denial of self, and certainly no battered and bleeding god-man calling you to pick up your cross and follow him. No, you will find instead the perfect manifestation of everything you wanted in the first place: the magnification of your will, not its dissolution. Expressive individualism disguised as epiphany, the reaching prayer of a culture that doesn’t know how lost it is."
That one sentence is the complete expression of all the ailments in the world today, from Muslim/Jewish conflicts to American Right vs Left and every other conflict across emotional, moral, spiritual, and political divides. It is the deification of the self, and each self demands that all others bow to it - hence the conflicts when the "other" will not capitulate.
What a tremendous read! And what a great story of God's pursuit of the sinner!
