Beloved friends in the love of liberty;
Peace and blessings to you, and to your families. May you be fortified well against the days to come. What we have witnessed in recent days is bewildering to many, and rightly so; for the very fabric of our society, which for several decades has been drawn and stressed by so many factors, has begun to rent visibly since the new year. We have witnessed terror, violent unrest, and the fall of so many governments that it is difficult for one to keep apace of the turbulence in which the world seems, inexorably, to be sinking.
Every day we are awash in fresh news of controversy, unrest, scandal, and outright war, such that our instincts are to turn away, and to deny the rising tide all around us, in the hopes of keeping our own small world dry and safe from the mounting torrent of the angry world outside.
Increasingly, our thoughts are in turmoil, our souls prey to anxiety about what tomorrow holds for ourselves and our loved ones. We are stunned with trepidation at the prospects of such profound change as our situation seems to demand, and yet we know that to do nothing is to succumb to forces which pay us no regard; and which, if left unchecked, will consume our liberty, our dignity, and perhaps even our very sustenance.
Speculation is rampant, and yet each day it is fueled anew; grows greater in force; and darker in tone. A spirit of dark carnival has entered our streets here in America, and while fear, frustration, anger, and the urge to bring change resonates in many of us; yet we cannot, and do not consent to the fashion by which these emotions are being released in our public venues, for what we see is repugnant; it is not, at its heart, a movement composed of hope, goodness, and light, but a movement of despair, rage, and aggression; its leading must, inevitably, be downward, into violence and despotism, if it goes anywhere at all.
Continue reading →