End Times
End Times
Last night, as the business of the holidays began to wane, as the decorations were dismantled and stored into the attic, as I turned from hosting to reflecting, I listened to a podcast by my carving teacher and contemporary commentator, Jonathan Pageau. I have been following Jonathan for years. I met him in CT during a week-long icon carving course. I knew him first as my teacher, then as an Orthodox Christian, and now as a necessary guide in turbulent times. Last night he delivered a profound series on Daily Wire entitled, The End of the World. https://www.dailywire.com/show/end-of-the-world
Jonathan does a splendid job of articulating the times we are swirling in and toward. He gives us an orientation. He offers hope and agency. We are surely in the end times. This is the end of the world, or as Jonathan so aptly clarifies, this is the end of a world. We have been here before. Many times. Personally, collectively. It is a dizzying time.
As our beloved poet, W.B. Yeats penned more than a century ago, in his prophetic poem, The Second Coming, we are caught in the spinning wheels.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
I made a decision yesterday as I drove home through unseasonable rain and fog. Driving alone in the car across the grid of country roads and open fields, my mind is free to roam. I am forever amazed at what emerges in the quiet. I surprised myself. I made a decision to delete my X (formerly Twitter) account. I have come to believe, more alarmingly, to experience, that the algorithms act as the shadow side of archetypes. While the archetypes when constellated challenge us to reach up, reach higher, reach farther, the algorithms do the opposite. They goad us to reach down, reach low, reach into narrower and narrower perspectives. In the echo chambers that trap and torture our sensibilities, X and similar social media platforms are addictive, possessive, and potentially demonic.
The year is winding down. In the year pushing toward the threshold, 2024, I will celebrate my 65th birthday. Some days I wonder how that is even possible. Inside I sometimes feel 15. Yet, with each setting of the sun, with each dying of the year, with each decade recorded in my aging joints and wrinkled brow, I am becoming the age of the elder. This is a threshold I have been preparing to cross for years. I have studied and meditated and prayed upon the responsibilities of this passage. When I turned fifty, I did ceremony in the Soul of the Mother lodge at Six Nations. I asked for guidance, teachers, and experiences to orient me toward my ancestors, my purpose, my destiny. I was not disappointed. I was challenged, wounded, inspired, and led. It has been a dizzying 15 years.
Jonathan Pageau reminded me of a profound story in his The End of the World series. He retold the story of Noah after the flood. How Noah faulted and gave himself to drink and was discovered drunk and naked in his tent. He was mocked by his son. All that he had sacrificed, achieved, and created was eclipsed in the dismissive eyes of one of his sons. This reminded me of the algorithms of social media platforms that ferret out opportunities to tear down and amplify our faults, our mistakes, our transgressions. We so easily and so quickly turn to disdain. We tear into one another rather than respectfully shield our gaze, look inward to our own frailties, and cloak the sins of the father in our vow to do better, reach higher, see farther.
At every threshold, the trolls and giants gather. Our fairy tales remind us of this. These regressive forces, these dark energies that resist consciousness are as much in us as they are in the world. They impede our passage. They demand a stipend. First, we must see them. Then we must be sure not to be them. Possession is a very real psychological and spiritual reality. When we no longer look up, when we look naively into the abyss, we are vulnerable to these forces. Surely, there are things that must be left behind as we cross into a new day, a new year, a new world, and a new possibility. For me, this year, X and similar platforms will no longer take space in my psyche. Resolution? I opt for resolve.
I resolve to reach up, to reach higher, to reach farther. I resolve to cultivate the best in myself, in my work, in my family, and in my community. I resolve to acknowledge my sins and the sins of my forebearers. I offer alms for the sacrifices made. I extend forgiveness for the transgressions committed. I vow to do better. Perhaps as I cross into my elderhood, the centre can hold.