While there
may be some who read this who welcome the results of the BREXIT vote in the
tenuously "United" Kingdom and/or support the erratic Presidential
campaign of Donald Trump, the concurrence of BREXIT vote and Trump campaign is
continuing evidence of the apocalyptic nature of our times where climate change
threatens the extinction of humanity. Although he eschews the word
"Apocalypse" Pope Francis has recognized the selfish instincts which threaten the survival of our
posterity. The drought and fires in the western US and the epic floods in West Virginia are just
two examples of what awaits humanities future.
The BREXIT
vote in particular has drawn me this Sunday to one poem that has affected me
deeply and guided my thoughts for decades: William Butler Yeats The Second Coming" published in 1919.
"Things
fall part" Yeats wrote. "the centre cannot
hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world . . . The blood-dimmed tide is
loosed … The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate
intensity."
In
my book The Coming of the Quantum Christ
I wrote of an Apocalypse of Selfishness. Trump is the embodiment of
selfishness. When a horrible massacre occurred in Orlando , Florida ,
Trump's first message did not reflect sympathy and concern for the victims and
their families but how everybody was congratulating him for being right about the
threat of Islam. He was actually in Scotland the day after the BREXIT vote
"trumpeting" the beautiful amenities of his two Scottish golf courses
until he was directed to the BREXIT, the results which has embraced. Indeed, Trump remarked that because BREXIT is devaluing the British Pound Sterling, his resorts will do well, The devaluation of the pound makes US dollars more valuable and will attract more US visitors to Scotland. He expressed no sympathy for British pensioners whose pensions will be devalued along with the pound.
Is it any wonder that I earlier
asked tongue not entirely in cheek whether he was the Anti-Christ? Pope Francis
has made it abundantly clear that in his view that selfishness is the driving force
of climate change. On
May 21, 2014, he lamented “If we destroy creation, creation will destroy us.”
Only by
united, unselfish actions can we ameliorate the extreme result of climate
change: the extinction of humanity. Trump and the BREXIT vote are material manifestations
of selfishness in action. I read the last stanza of Yeats poem to be not an
inquiry about Christ but the Anti-Christ:
The darkness drops again
but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towardsBethlehem
to be born?
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This is not a promo for my book "Quantum Christ" but if you are interested:
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards
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This is not a promo for my book "Quantum Christ" but if you are interested:
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