A 21st CENTURY MAN

I decided to subtitle this blog “The Spiritual Autobiography of a 21st Century Man” because I have a vision of what the 21st Century Man will be.



Having spent most of the 20th as an unwitting materialist logical positivist empiricist skeptic, the 21st Century Man will take a step back, breathe deep, and gaze about him; seeing just exactly where the philosophy of his day has gotten us as a society. Will he like what he sees? Will he be able to stumble about in a world where no one believes there is such a thing as right or wrong, apart from the utilitarian principle of “whatever makes me happy is right?"



I don’t think so. I couldn’t, and I’m the king of the self centered narcissists. In my limited philosophical internal dialogue, the question came down one day to nothing more than “Somebody gotta be right, and somebody gotta be wrong." And for some reason, I was determined to find out who was right. Somewhere in my psychosocial makeup, whether from nature or nurture, whether by the direct outpouring of the grace of God, or via the burning from the little spark of himself he created within me from the beginning, I wanted to find out the truth.



And that is why, despite everything, I am optimistic about the future. Everything works in cycles in this old world, and what goes around comes around. Mankind is close to having had enough of itself as god, to the point of nausea. Like the man who exploded from eating the wafer thin mint, we’re going to get sick of what we’ve made of the world, and from there, where else can we turn?



To the truth.



Where will we find it? I believe we’ll find it in the Church, which is to say we’ll have to find it in ourselves at least to some degree. There’s no way I can wait for “The Church” to turn things around and sit on my hands while I wait. I’m as much a part of the Church as my Bishop. A different part, let us be clear, with different responsibilities and duties, but still a part. Indeed if I (meaning the average Joe Layperson) don’t do anything, it doesn’t matter what the Bishop does, because then he’s like a general without an army, making plans that will never be carried out.



But I digress. My vision of the 21st Century, in a nutshell, is that the Truth will win out, because the lie is losing its luster.