For all its
Woke clownishness, the latest Star Wars trilogy does provide one
valuable insight into the soul of modern man:
He craves connections with others.
The ongoing Force-mediated interactions between Rey and Ben, even over
vast distances, are the make-believe fulfillment of that absence in the lives
of many.
It is a
great irony that the death of Governor Buddy Roemer would offer us a chance to
reorient ourselves regarding the splintering of our society into isolated
individuals. The partisan nature of
electoral politics usually keeps the death of politicians from uniting the
whole people in the way the death of a hereditary figure like the late Prince
Philip in England does. Nevertheless, a
little reflecting upon the nature of death may help bring a measure of unity
even to partisan Louisiana.
First is the
realization that death will touch all of us, whether we call ourselves
liberals, conservatives, Republicans, Independents, or what have you.
Second,
everyone falls, everyone sins. We need
one another’s prayers in order to live a life that honors God and uplifts our
neighbor, and the help provided by our prayers extends even to those who have
left this life. One of the common Orthodox prayers
for the departed expresses this in the following words:
O God of spirits
and of all flesh, Who hast trampled down death and overthrown the Devil, and
given life to Thy world, do Thou, the same Lord, give rest to the souls of Thy
departed servants in a place of brightness, a place of refreshment, a place of
repose, where all sickness, sighing, and sorrow have fled away. Pardon every
transgression which they have committed, whether by word or deed or thought.
For Thou art a good God and lovest mankind; because there is no man who lives yet
does not sin, for Thou only art without sin, Thy righteousness is to all
eternity, and Thy word is truth.
For Thou are the
Resurrection, the Life, and the Repose of Thy servants who have fallen asleep,
O Christ our God, and unto Thee we ascribe glory, together with Thy Father, who
is from everlasting, and Thine all-holy, good, and life-creating Spirit, now
and ever unto ages of ages. Amen.
At this
point we run into the problem of partisanship head-on. How can people so
divided possibly pray a prayer like this for a political ‘enemy’, whom they
have bitterly attacked and denounced day in and day out? The answer is in the prayer itself: ‘For Thou art a good God and lovest mankind’.
The answer
is love. Not the silly, pop-culture kind
of love that you find in songs by The Beatles or on TV shows like Friends,
which is actually a parasitic self-love that simply uses the other in order to
satisfy one’s own longings.
No, the
answer is divine love, which means self-sacrifice, humility, cutting off one’s
own will for the sake of another. This
is the kind of love we see modeled by the Persons of the Holy Trinity, which is
actually more profound than that: ‘God
is love’ (1 John 4:16) – love is a fundamental part of God’s very existence. Likewise, this is the love given freely to us
by the Lord Jesus Christ, who emptied Himself for our sakes, took upon Himself
our fallen human nature, died, and rose again in order to conquer death, to
heal us, and allow us to participate in the super-abundant life of the Trinity.
Modern man
looks to many places for unity: abstract
principles and propositions, economic theories, paper constitutions, social
justice activism, a social media group.
But not often to Godlike love.
Yet it is the only thing capable of allowing us to rise above all the
things we have allowed to divide us so deeply.
When we pray for the good repose of the soul of one we despised in this
life, we are beginning to restore communion between one another and between our
State and God.
Thus, practicing
Trinitarian, Christlike love is not merely an outward moral act, it unites us
with the true substance of being, it makes this present in the world, since
‘God is love’. Everything else is a
false reality built on self-love that will crumble to pieces when difficulties
come. Only through selfless love do we
build what lasts.
Edmund Burke
famously said in his Reflections on the Revolution in France that a
society is an
eternal partnership between the living, the dead, and those not yet born. By crucifying our fallen passions that tell
us to hate our political enemies even beyond the grave; by praying for their
souls instead, we will strengthen those connections written about by Sir Edmund, laying the true and lasting foundations for a better
Louisiana.
In that
spirit, let
us all say with as much sincerity as we can, ‘Grant rest eternal in blessed
repose, O Lord, to Buddy Roemer, Kathleen Blanco, Dave Treen, Huey Long, Earl
Long, Troy Middleton, General Sherman, . . . . . . . , who have fallen asleep,
and make their memory to be eternal!’
--
Holy Ælfred
the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!
Anathema to
the Union!
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