Garbage in, garbage out...

Lent is half over and again I'm learning the simple lesson "Garbage in, garbage out".

I have to choose not only what I fast from but what I consume as well. If I eat, as it were, my culture's trash (and we're at a very trashy moment in American culture right now) that food, like all food, becomes part of me and changes me at the core. If I take in good the process is the same but I am transformed by holiness.

A strong argument can be made that the larger society at this era of history is less supportive of the true and holy. I'm not sure it ever really was, every generation seems to kill its prophets and saints, but certainly the veneer of pretension has worn off and people no longer feel shamed by embracing raw passions. Those who seek sacred things often have to search deeper, endure greater hardship, and more often travel without company, or even the illusion of company, in our wealthy and decayed state then perhaps was true even a generation ago.

And the speed by which we are immersed in this decayed culture has exponentially increased. In my childhood there were limitations of technology and therefore of time which allowed the larger world out there to be digested a bit as it percolated down. It is not so today. Only the most isolated person today can avoid feeling like a goaltender being constantly barraged by players from all sides and unable to stop the hundred of shots per minute aimed by our internet 24 hour news cycle world. Some are going to slip through even the most adept, vigilant, and quick of reflex.

So we, so I, have to make deliberate and planned choices about what I let in and what stays out, what I eat, as it were and from what I abstain. Its is the maryrdom of this age with the stakes as high as in the days of fire and sword. Compared to it walking past a McDonald's is child's play.