The America I live in is physically ill, psychologically troubled and spiritually purposeless. Unanchored to any moral bedrock; unsecured to any ethical foundation. We’re a culture in deep despair and disappearing into death. Drowning in a sea of moral relativism and dying in ethical quicksand.
Love is no longer the ultimate moral action but a soulless word. God is no longer the fundamental truth but an idea without meaning. God is love.
This wasn’t the Gen X America I grew-up in. When children were physically healthy, and autism and obesity were rare. When children were mentally well, and not excessively medicated or victims of school shootings. When children were spiritually cherished, and not innocent victims to enrich big tech, big pharma, big agriculture and big food. When powerful people who sexually exploited children weren’t protected by both political parties and “intelligence” agencies.
We live in a culture infected with narcissism and infested by a fabricated sense of self. Believing that because we are amoral objects, morality, like truth, is defined by our whims, wishes and wants. Accountability, responsibility or doing unto others is sung as a single note; mi.
Our ruling class orchestrates this tone-deaf cacophony. Institutional leaders posturing as disingenuous experts who are financially compromised. Indentured academic partisans terrified of intellectual curiosity let alone free thinking. Insincere politicians who serve a system of self while they screw over their constituents to serve financiers and foreign nations.
We all have add our sounds of selfishness to this symphony of moral relativism. Desiring what we think we deserve, even when our heart prompts us to sing a different song. Divine tones reminding us that love is the melody of life.
A life abundant in love is about us not me. Love is always about the well-being of all humans. And only God determines what is good and anything other than love is evil.
Too much of my life reflected this confused and corrupt culture. Chasing status and stuff while justifying my every desire as a need as opposed to a want. Anesthetizing any ethical discomfort to avoid confronting my participation in doing things that harmed other people. Like a career in pharmaceutical marketing; like supporting unjust wars predicated on lies; like ridiculing anyone who questioned why our political class is protecting powerful people responsible for heinous crimes, including the destruction of children.
This prideful charade of ego would finally collapse in my mid-fifties. When I realized that good is never defined by the desires of my heart, but by the Creator of all hearts. The one and only true God who gave me life and who I image. Who has loved and known me since before He formed me in the womb. Who loves and knows all humans because He created all people.
This shattering of my worldly self, allowed me to see the Light in the darkness. It illuminated the evil I could not see because I was blind. It laid bare my deeds of non-love because I lived in fear of Love.
My heart can never go back to moral relativism because it’s a lie that can only exist in the darkness and it’s in the darkness that evil flourishes. This is why transparency is the honest heart of any relationship that professes love of neighbor. This is why I can no longer trust our government or any societal institution because their hearts have grown cold in the darkness.
The evil that is moral relativism only ends when we believe in Love. When we trust in Love. When we live in Love. When we speak the Truth to a world that loves the darkness.
Be a light of love in the world. Begin with yourself, your family and friends and within your community. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will never overcome it. This is how Love names evil even when we and the world are blinded by our own dark desires.
Peace. God loves you.
If you want to learn more about how my spiritual awakening came to be, you can read about it in Finding God in Vegas: A Gen X Spiritual Awakening; available on Amazon and across all platforms in print or electronic or audio.