the new world

'for anyone who is in christ, there is a new creation; the old creation has gone, and now the new one is here.'  s. paul's second letter to the church in corinth, chapter 5, verse 17.  (jerusalem bible)

'there is no sound tree that produces rotten fruit, nor again a rotten tree that produces sound fruit.  for every tree can be told by its own fruit:  people do not pick figs from thorns, nor gather grapes from brambles.'   jesus, as recorded in the gospel according to st. luke, chapter 6, verses 43-44.  (jerusalem bible)

i watched terrence malick's hauntingly beautiful movie the new world last night.   then i walked, in the cool of the evening, the same time of day that the book of genesis says YHWH walked with adam, the earthling, and eve, the mother of all, in the garden.  it was a very dangerous combination.  it made me think.

malick's movies are always thought-provoking for me, and i highly recommend them.  if you still think of world war two as 'the good war,' watch the thin red line..  as an alternative to the hundreds of 'western movies' that are the mythology of american, i suggest days of heaven.  as the oldest of three sons of the fifties, i look forward to seeing the tree of life,.  so, as an anglo-phile, who will post 'god save the queen' on his facebook for the fourth of july, the new world was a harsh reminder of nothing i didn't already know, but more or less must choose to forget in order not to life in a state of constant rebellion.  of course today's political equivalent of redcoats wear pixelated camouflage rather than the colours of the king.

ah, but the cool of the evening.  the cool of the evening was filled with the droidalbeasts that still require humans for brains but may soon not even need us for that, but to whom we sacrifice everything, even the cool of the evening.  how gladly we pass our children through the fires of moloch to have a new cadillac.  do ford still make mercuries?  if they do, they should build a mercury moloch.  and one of the most amazing things about the shiny transformers that have replaced the animals--for a long time there was here in eureka springs the road kill cafe--is that many of them bore on their flanks little signs claiming jesus as lord. 

and the same people who are driven by the beast are often the ones who want to put up the ten commandments in public places--something i would not oppose, by the way--to remind us, among other things, not to take the name of the lord in vain.

now i realize not all of  modern, protestant-capitalist-industrialism--and i don't think one would survive without the other, which is probably an important clue why 'communist'-industrialism seems to do poorly--i realize this amalgum that lets me spout on the internet, is not all bad.  malick does too.  mozart piano music plays an important role in the new world, and there's even a good englishman, john rolfe, played by christian bale.

but.

i look around me at what we have done, not just to 'the new world' of america but to the whole of the holy one's creation, and i shudder.  the problem is not new.  the story of pandora's box tells us the greeks knew the problem of original sin.  george pal warned me when i was a junior in high school with a now mostly forgotten flick, atlantis, the lost continent..  but the problem does not get better, it gets worse.  we began to chop down the trees around the fort at jamestown so we could see our 'enemies' approaching, and we didn't stop.

how then are we to live?

insomuch as it is possible to me, i life in peace with all men.  i rejoice in the good news that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, a sort of parallel universe.  as john smith said in the movie, 'i know the world is more than that fort [which was jamestown].'  but i shudder.

you see, even though i am surrounded by savage calvinists who seem to think that we are predestined not to walk in love but to drive in lincoln mkx's, i have read more than the a snatch of romans and augustine and john calvin.  more importantly, i have looked around at the fruit.  i know that the sacred springs that make my little adopted city so wonderful are full of the poisons of modernity.  oil spills continuously, not just last summer in the gulf of mexico.

and i know that the same paul whose writings are abused to allow us to rend asunder what the holy one has joined together, penned these words:

'all the truth about us will be brought out in the law court of christ, and each of us will get what he deserves for the things he did in the body, good or bad.'  s. paul's second letter to the church at corinth, chapter 5, verse10.