Raving at close of day

What strikes me most, morning after morning, in radio coverage of the freefall of America, is best captured in an ancient prophet's words during a similar time:

"You were wearied with the length of your way, but you did not say, 'It is hopeless'; you found new life for your strength, and so you were not faint. Whom did you dread and fear, so that you lied, and did not remember me, did not lay it to heart?" (Isaiah 57:10-11)

There is something disturbing about a nation in so much trouble that it is yet unbowed. It reminds me of Queen Jezebel, who when she saw the distant horsemen coming to assassinate her, sat down at her boudoir and coolly applied her mascara. Or it reminds me of this:

"Do not go gentle into that good night / Old age should burn and rave at close of day / Rage, rage against the dying of the light" (Dylan Thomas).

This is man, showing his true colors, the velvet glove of a lifelong benign indifference to God, now removed to expose the iron fist of his pure defiance. But as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn foresaw 30 years ago at Harvard:

"The forces of Evil have begun their decisive offensive. You can feel their pressure, yet your screens and publications are full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. What is the joy about?"

So what are we as a people? A testimony to the indomitable human spirit? Or teeth-gritting, fist-shaking rebels? Are we brave or stiff-necked? And yet the Lord keeps the porch light on:

"But he who takes refuge in me shall possess the land" (v.13)