"Together we will vanquish the virus and America will rise from the crisis to new and even greater heights.....(for) In America....we are the captains of our own fate."
Those were words in a President Trump 2020 Memorial Day speech in Baltimore. William Ernest Henley's poem.....Invictus....(Latin for 'unconquerable).....published in 1875....has been consistently referenced since it was penned. Churchill quoted it during World War II.....Obama used it.... and of course Mandela. At least two mass murdereres referenced it. Timothy McVeigh choose the poem as his last words. Matt Damon made a film of that title. Claude Rains quoted it to Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca....and one of the Star Trek films quoted the final two lines. The brand of the watch I'm wearing right now is an....Invicta. The poem reads:
"Out of night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll,
I am master of my fate,
I am captain of my soul."
I first posted the following on February 23, 2019....and again on Christmas day 2019....just before the pandemic hit in full force....."The most pressing issue is that God has....as of now....forsaken us....big fancy mega-churches and all....booming economic statistics notwithstanding....we are undone....woe to us....we tried to do it on our own....throwing God's name around as if it were a magic word....but are left as were Hophni and Phinehas who thought that the mere presence of the Ark of the Covenant would secure victory in battle....but who perished....the Ark being captured....and the news of which brought on the death of Eli....and led to the naming of a child....Ichabod...."the glory has departed!"
It does matter how strait the gate....."for wide is the gate and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat. Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." (Matthew 7:13-14 KJV)
We are not 'unconquerable' or 'invincible' as the word invictus implies....but we are....unshakable....and this not in a good way. There is absolute chaos and violence and unbelief and great delusion and very real existential threats in America today....yet nothing penetrates.....nothing awakens us....as they at most cause us turn over for a new sleepiong position. Horrors last for a few days at most....and even here can be set aside for an evening of preplanned gaiety. Tomorrow's pulpits….far too many of them….will be filled with smiles as usual....the congregations dutifully singing....and praying along with the pastor....whereas thirty minutes before noon....or maybe thiry minutes after noon....the day really begins....we having satisfied God's requirements....and offered our sacrifices....lame though they may be....and God takes it all in....having recalled many....but not all....of those faithful preachers who had for decades passed on the warnings that God revealed to them..
"But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise like a thief." (1 Thessalonians 3:4 ESV)
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