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Dispatches From Dystopia

~ "What man by worrying can add one cubit to his span of years?"

Dispatches From Dystopia

Monthly Archives: May 2018

Fornicating Shakers

31 Thursday May 2018

Posted by David in Civilization, Relationships, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

#Contraception, #Shakers, #Survival

You don’t hear much about the Shakers anymore. Sure, you can sing The Simple Gifts (think Copland’s Appalachian Spring ), collect some fine baskets, or acquire some superb furniture. But the Shakers are extinct. Why? They practiced celibacy on a grand scale. They eschewed reproductive sex. So in order to survive, the Shakers needed to attract new members from the world outside of their own ever-shrinking sphere.

Today, we live in a culture, poisoned by the ruminations of toxic intellectuals, like Paul Ehrlich, who decry the natural human impulse to procreate and perpetuate, not only the human species, but human cultures. These cultures are not merely the Western European cultures; Japan, through the practice of birth control, is experiencing a demographic collapse. China has a bleak future, brought on by the Maoist “One Child Policy”. As college students in the Seventies, we were constantly advised to adopt Zero Population Growth as a cultural value. Having more than two children per family was, at the very least, bad form, morally irresponsible, at the worst. Men became little more than human drones (“sperm donors”). Women, in the name of feminism, rejected what defined them as women. And for anyone, man or woman, to state this, is to invite anger, fury, and scorn. A child became The Ultimate Pet. About 35 years ago, in the mid-1980’s, I noticed more and more people refer to their dogs and cats, their pets, as their “babies”. Again, many of you will minimize or ridicule this observation.

The culture has rejected its own survival, guaranteeing its decay. Thanks to wide availability of artificial contraception, and the cultural value of sex as little more than primal recreation, we are dying out, much like the Shakers.

Except there will be a remnant who will survive at first, then ultimately flourish. Much as a forest regenerates itself after a calamitous fire, those who reject the contraceptive paradigm will preserve Western, Judeo-Christian, Catholic Civilization, where both males and females will be valued. And these humans will be valued from conception til natural death.

The Patronesses of France

31 Thursday May 2018

Posted by David in Catholic Life, Sacrifice

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

#Patron Saints of France, #Saints

St Thérèse of Lisieux and St Joan of Arc are here depicted kneeling before The Blessed Virgin Mary.

St Thérèse, The Little Flower, and St Joan are Patron Saints of France. The turmoil in Western civilization, including France, today is exacerbated by spiritual decline and down right decay. We would be wise to remember these two Saints. The Little Flower, St Thérèse, proclaimed that we can bear witness to Christ, in the smallest of deeds and prayers. We need not accomplish the great, merely do the small things well, like a meal lovingly prepared for our families or a Rosary prayed from the heart.

St Joan’s witness is all about courage. She was a soldier. Arrested by the enemies of France, she was put on trial, where, in the face of martyrdom, she professed her faith, remaining steadfast to it, as she was burned at the stake.

For our time, we need to proclaim The Gospel with simplicity, discipline, and courage. Pray that we can emulate these two Saints.

Up.

29 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by David in Catholic Life, sleep

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Tags

Insomnia, The Rosary

It is early, 0331. I’ve been awake maybe an hour and a half. I have had the experience when I wake up, lie in bed a bit and sleep doesn’t return, so I “try” harder to sleep. What is that about? If I can “will” sleep, that would make me exceptional as a human. I am not equipped with an ON/OFF switch. None of us are.

I prayed the Rosary. Serenity crept back in. And my eyelids are a little heavier. I did some channel-surfing, and decided I didn’t need to see the same footage of the Wehrmacht on the Russian Front in the summer of 1941 that I had seen many, many times before. So I switched to watching for trains. Maybe a freight will pass through before I go back to bed..

I always have a sense of failure when the wake-ups and insomnia assert themselves. It is as if sleeping is my job. Sleeping is one of my few regular daily activities, along with eating.

In A Sleep-deprived Fog.

28 Monday May 2018

Posted by David in Relationships, Sexuality

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Tags

#TV Crime

My wife got in last night a little before midnight. She wanted to “unwind”. For her, this means watching crime drama TV shows, where people get murdered or disappear. De gustibus non disputandem. (There is no disputing matters of taste.)

I chill with her for the night. I know it’s just fiction, but still killing as entertainment doesn’t do it for me. I have a rather exhaustive knowledge of the wars of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries and the more I learn about killing, the more repulsed I am. It is truly the stuff of nightmares; so a TV show that ends in murder by blunt force trauma won’t send me to dreamland.

So now I sit. It is almost 1300 Hours (1:00 PM) My eyes have yet to adjust to wakefulness, I need to sleep some more. The pain of life without a physical, sexual lover, the platonic Hell, if you will, seizes me fully. How she lives as she does is a mystery to me, Yet I persist, because the other expressions of love are powerful also, perhaps more powerful than Eros.

Decoration Day

28 Monday May 2018

Posted by David in Uncategorized

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The tradition started after the American Civil War of putting flowers and flags on the graves of the war dead. So the story goes, the graves of both Union and Confederate dead were “decorated” and this common gesture of remembrance helped heal the wounds of the most catastrophic war in American History. Sometime in the 1950’s Decoration Day became Memorial Day. And in the 1970’s the day celebrated moved from 30 May to the last Monday of May. We remember the dead from all our wars on this day.

At least we say we do. Mostly, we start “Summer” on this day. This weekend is when the public outdoor swimming pools open in the parts of the country where year round outdoor swimming is not possible, We start eating outdoors with backyard barbecues. All in all, the tempo changes to summer mode.

Virginia and particularly Richmond, where I live, has many sites of Civil War battles and, consequently, cemeteries for the war dead. Arlington National Cemetery is on the site of the Custis-Lee Mansion, seized by the Federal Government for just such a purpose.

In the Culture Of Fun which is America in the 21st Century, remembrance takes a backseat to Fun.

Happy Anniversary

28 Monday May 2018

Posted by David in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

0526181726390989644.jpg

Yesterday, a wonderful picture composed itself. The first day lily of the season bloomed with the red roses on the trellis in the background.

And with Sunday being our 17th wedding anniversary, what a marvelous picture to text to Mrs CorC?.

She worked a late shift, arriving home after midnight. She was in no way ready to get to the 11:00 Mass. I went alone, a little begrudgingly. Church reaffirms my commitment to my marriage, the calling to live for something larger than myself, the bond between my wife and me.

Sunday was Trinity Sunday, wherein the Church reaffirms its teaching on the Three Persons (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) within the One Godhead. Father M said the interwoven nature among the Three Persons is all about relationship. OK. Enough on that.

After Mass, I head home. We go to lunch before she goes back to work. We share a tasty almond cream cake at an Italian restaurant.

Tonight, If you ask me to define Love, I will tell you that Love is the ability to transcend resentments, to aspire to a higher purpose, such as an enduring marriage.

Tonight

26 Saturday May 2018

Posted by David in Love and stuff, Relationships

≈ 9 Comments

I am alone. She is at work. It is our anniversary weekend. Seventeen years (17). We had a late lunch out. Then strolling around the mall, we went into Godiva Chocolates and I bought us treats, chocolate dipped macaroons. All in all, they were tasty. But the fun, for me, was in the spontaneity. We came. We saw. We bought. We ate.

Earlier that day, I made the regular foray to BJ’s, buying the usual, croissants, cream, coffee, fruit.

Right now I am more than a little tired. And lonely. We live this disjointed life where we tend to move in different directions. We have been together for 17 years. The only advice I can give to men about an enduring marriage is “Don’t be a selfish pig. It is not about getting your way.”

Night, all.

Another Night. Another Rant.

25 Friday May 2018

Posted by David in Family, Relationships

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Tags

#Blended Families, #Incompleteness

She is upstairs, watching a chic-flick. I am downstairs, watching women’s college softball. We had a pretty good day together, had lunch, went to a thrift shop, and found a cool book on the collections in the Hermitage Gallery near St Petersburg. Then home. And a nap. And waking up. Then the dread emptiness I feel that we have no passion, an old age approaching with a void, waiting to die.

I texted with #2 son. His birthday is next Friday and he will be 30. Neither of my sons are her children. So I feel like there is very little glue to my “family”. The sons have different mothers. #2 son’s mom is deceased. The bond comes from my sister who is incredibly close to her nephews. The family gatherings at her house are special to me.

MrsCorC?, I fear, likes this jumble and junkpile of a house. It keeps my children away from her. She wants me for herself. And there is no energy, unless we are going somewhere. anywhere.

The Matter Of Flowers

23 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by David in Flowers

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

#Anthurium, #Rose

Anthurium

Rose In My Garden.

We take flowers for granted. On any given day, I can go to almost any supermarket and buy some nice flowers. A trip to a dedicated florist is unnecessary.

Flowers have a rather bizarre association with femininity and the effeminate. An old derogatory term for a male homosexual is “pansy”. Why? Granted, some flowers evoke thoughts of the female sexual anatomy, like the iris. That may just be my little idiosyncrasy. Some flowers, like the anthurium or the gladiolus have a flagrant phallic swagger.

Flowers abound in pleasure gardens. Think of the tulips in the gardens of the Ottoman Sultans in Constantinople. We need places of serene beauty, just as any Sultan did. And with the democratization of wealth since the Industrial Revolution, nearly everyone has access to a beautiful garden in either a private residence or a public park. The need to be in the midst of beauty is universal, as is food, drink, shelter, rest and warmth.

Roses

23 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by David in Uncategorized

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