"A severe famine rose in that country". Luke 15:14.
"The days of famine are coming - not of bread, but of hearing my Word" Amos 8:11.
It's been a festival of gluttony.
Virtually everything we could have wanted or needed, and more besides - money, power, distraction, it's all been there for the taking, and goodness, have we taken - decade after decade we have aggrandised our lives with the notion that today is all that really matters - live for the moment as Atheist Sam Harris puts it.
That was until recently.
Abruptly, all this manner of consumerism, and any street-level view supporting it, was deemed morally bankrupt and a genuine manifestation of evil against the true 'virtues' of the day - the moral correctness of the new social correction movements supposedly bringing a new, virtuous good for all.
There is, no doubt, some validity entangled amongst the blinkered vision of these new idealists. The 2008 crash revealed just how readily people will acquiesce to the belief that greed is good and let this consume them, if it means they reach the top of the money tree (just look at Bill Gates latest accumulation through the Vaccine shares he recently dumped, and then informed everyone how poor these materials actually are). Notions of prudence, moderation and everyday common sense caution were thrown away with the Tsunami of having more and more of it all right now became the supposedly attainable goal of some of the biggest financial companies in the world - all by merely re-valuing atrocious property deals.
The ideological backlash, swinging the pendulum to the goal of heralding global austerity, is generated by the necessity of revulsion at such wanton selfishness. The trouble is that the zealotry of such activism derives not from some genuine desire for a better world, but the very same lust to control and manipulate, evidenced when Capitalism became consumed by absolute greed.
The motivation behind both spheres of misery is not beneficence, but a endemic hatred for nurturing what is actually good.
We may inhabit a realm of plenty provided by the Lord, but we hate that same Lord with a passion, and act continually to reject His good.Gorging ourselves, in one manner or another, is merely the terrible expression of this.
The consequences of such revolt are always the same.
We squander the bestowed benefits until they are spent and then we discover ourselves profoundly starved of what we need at our point of deepest need.
That realisation leaves only two options - starvation in the desert or a contrite return to our true Father.
Christianity is paramount here, because it conveys that the real source of meaning and provision resides beyond our own devices and genuine health is only encountered when we discover this (a truly rude awakening for people going no where without it).
The problem right now is that multitudes believe they should simply remain where they are, residing in plague territory, applying some notion of self-help to quash their vital hunger with the notion that it's an illusion and their gnostic goal (self-referential meaning) can be met. This is facilitating a manner of culture that is truly satanic in nature. Here, in our nightmare, only our own perceptions are the dearth of identity, believed viable to manufacture a 'good' society.
This cycle of self-justification leaves us beyond the reach of the banquet of reconciliation and celebration upon a return home, viewing any such realm as entirely incredulous to our (miserable) estate. We cannot cross a threshold of unmerited care because to do so would abandon our confidence in what we are and do, however brutalised this may have become by the cruelty of the age; better that than actual dependence upon the hated mercy of a benevolent redeemer.
The two sons reflected here from Christ's story in a modern fashion were both strangers in a realm where they could not see what was actually before them. Only later did one of them (at least in the tale) realise what he was meant to be a part of.
Ours is a world of broken and dreadful things, unless that same awakening happens to each of us.
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