America is a poor country

You did not invite me here from a poor country to speak to a rich country. America is not a rich country. America is a desperately spiritually poor country.

Mother Teresa, speaking at Harvard

I came across this article that seems strangely appropriate after the last few days.  The article triggered a re-reading of The Abolition of Man again.  May be worth it to those who have an interest.

The essence of modernity is the death of the spiritual. A modernist is someone who is more concerned about air pollution than soul pollution. A modernist is someone who wants clean air so he can breathe dirty words.

A modernist cares about big things, like whales, more than little things, like fetuses; big things like governments, more than little things like families and neighborhoods; big things like states, which last hundreds of years, more than little things like souls, which last forever.

A modernist, thus, is one who puts his faith and hope for progress in precisely the one thing that cannot progress: matter. A traditionalist, on the other hand, is one who “looks not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen, for the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are unseen are eternal." A traditionalist believes in "the permanent things," and the permanent things cannot progress because they are the things to which all real progress progresses.

http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/

If you are interested, the Abolition of Man is here: http://www.columbia.edu/

This is probably one for the C.S. Lewis fans, or at least those without chests.

In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.

Men without Chests

C. S. Lewis