From the Cave..... our Newsletter

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SUMMER 2023

Summer has finally arrived in the North Carolina Piedmont. The hot weather we have now balances out the cool May and June temperatures. One cannot ever begin to understand the weather. We can only complain about it. It’s hot!

We finally were able to get our vegetable garden planted in early June this year. Despite the late planting, we have the best garden we have had in years. All our plants are healthy and beginning to produce. 

In our Chapel, we pray for peace. It seems that is the prayer that we do the most these days. The war in the Ukraine continues. There are revolts and coups in one small country after another. One cannot read or listen to the daily news without finding there has been another shooting. All our major cities have become no more than a modern Boot Hill or the Shootout at the OK Corral.

But worst of all are the divisions that plague our national society. Each side of a question holds on to their position tighter than a junkyard dog does a bone. There is no conversation, it seems, anymore. We have become a nation of reaction, not cooperation, of rancor instead of reason.

Many years ago, I read the basis for Western Civilization is conversation, the ability to discuss ideas freely. I can remember open debate in our Legislations where each side, with drama, but without rancor, would debate issues for the common good not for the betterment of their political party. That has all been forgotten in today’s way.

The “anything goes” morality of today has reached a low that I thought I would never experience in this country. We, as a society, are divided racially, sexually and economically. In fact, it seems that we are divided in any way the human mind can dream up.

Why?

Because we have forgotten God. We have become a global society where each person has proclaimed themselves the supreme arbitrator of their own individual life. We have proclaimed that whatever we feel to do, right or wrong, is acceptable even if it collides with all rational or religious morality. 

Today’s society castigates anyone who objects to any form of criticism of the prevailing immorality and misdirection whether that objection comes from whichever religious or moral beliefs that have stood our society well for ages.

Is there hope?

Our hope is in God. Our hope is not in a certain political party or in any particular political personality. Our hope is in God alone. It is time for us, for society, to return to the Supreme Being of the universe. It is time for all of us to stop our individual soap box stances and look to the common good of all mankind. 

God is still in control.

Let’s don’t forget it!

Pax

+Peter