Terrible Times
May 5, 2023
According to my research online, most abortions are carried out by women between 18 and 40 years old. These years correspond to women’s prime child-bearing years. That in itself, excluding the “morality discussions” surrounding abortion itself, seems a very, very sad state of affairs to me. It is a terrible situation in terrible times.
It also seems to me, and maybe I’m being delusional, but there was a time in which boys and girls had in mind to find each other, to marry, and raise a family. I realize that marriage was presented to my generation — especially on TV — as a highly sanitized version distinct from reality and tied to the ridiculous version of womanhood as “barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen.” The only pursuits permitted outside the home and hearth were bridge clubs, Bingo, and church bazaars and pot luck dinners. Reality is a bit different than Dick and Laura sleeping in separate beds and Mrs. Petri needing her husband’s permission to spend HIS money…
Just to avoid being hypercritical or being accused of being judgmental, it was around my 28th year that I realized I was supposed to grow up into responsible adulthood through my teenage years. That was far, far too late for that illuminating discovery and realization of that fact of life. I often behaved irresponsibly. So, looking back, I am not trying to present myself as some kind of anything close to being a pillar of virtue and wisdom. But I am learning, however slowly.
Notwithstanding all that, most of the reasons given for seeking abortions are variations of “not ready” or “interferes with education and/or career” or “cannot afford this child” or “not ready for marriage” or the least admitted, but very popular, “don’t know or want to marry the father.”
My initial callous response puts all those reasons into the barrel of “Convenience.” However, to young women, pregnancy is never “convenient.”
Let me explain my initial judgment on the matter… All women in this age group are old enough to know better, to know where babies come from, and how they are made. And because their mothers probably told them that the man can walk away but the woman has his gift left in her belly… well, maybe we all go through life as if sleepwalking…
There are physical, emotional, and pleasurable reasons driving the fast and loose sexual behavior, but when will everyone consider keeping their heads screwed on tight, their passions in perspective, and their physical cravings under their own control, and keep their pants on?
When will folks begin to realize choices have consequences and not all of them are harmless, and excuses alone not always righteous?
…I know, I know, who gives any thought to righteousness in this world?
Now, some may have the same lame excuse I just mentioned about myself, growing up extremely late and lame brained. Yet, women should know by now, many male sexual partners are neither ready for nor are looking for a partnership — certainly not as in a family. When in adolescence, I was taught that women are more mature than men, that they grow up faster and are more aware. Seems true. Nowadays, I’m not so sure that responsibility is part of that calculation.
Know this, us men often have the same excuses for walking away from pregnancies as women have for seeking abortions. Worse, us boys often are just looking for a “quickie” or “getting our rocks off” or “scoring” or even awkwardly, though perhaps more nicely, “looking for a yet-to-be-defined-love.”
None of the given reasons men and women have are worth a flat tire on a wheelbarrow. It is plainly the old fashioned notion called Responsibility which has somehow been lost over the generations.
In any event, an awful lot of boys and girls today are apparently not ready for prime time. Not even close. However, there is, obviously, a remnant of “old fashioned couples,” because the population is still expanding.
Please, allow me to offer and expound on a theory…
The whole modern Western world’s approach to Life is tearing apart all the strands holding Family together and, by extension, civilization, which is rapidly following the family’s demise. This is, of course, not yet a worldwide phenomenon or a universal fact of life… but it seems to be sliding that way.
Going back to the “Good Old Days,” where agrarian systems prospered, so did the culture of its population. Kids grew up with farm animals and saw how babies were made. They worked and played outdoors. Connected to the Earth, they learned how neighbors and family worked together to survive and prosper. They learned community and practicality and responsibility.
After the several Industrial Revolutions that panorama has all faded away. Ironically, all the promises of those Economic revolutions also evaporated… but in actuality, the promises of more leisure time for intellectual and cultural pursuits were meant only for the wealthy and the intellectual royalty of the day — not for the rest of us, the peons, the working stiffs.
The revival of the picturesque ideal may have evaporated in the winds of the drug-addled pipedreams of the 60’s Generation… the agrarian “getting back to nature movement” fizzled out. There remains a remnant, however, mostly inspired by young people who see the environments that the world is offering as their inheritance as needing much salvation. 4H is still alive. Some TV and a few online projects — growingagreenerworld.com — is still helping people rediscover Earthwise methods of gardening. Young people are still organizing around the right to not be murdered at school.
Cultures have always been devoured by Industrial Revolutions, including this new AI Industry. (Revolutions sometimes don’t accomplish their promised results.)
Yes, there remains a remnant, but mostly only nostalgic memories. But I digress…
Few rural societal situations remain today due to the several Industrial Revolutions, forcing families into the urban wastelands, working all kinds of hours to put food on their tables and maintain their lives.
Yes, there remains a remnant, a few exceptions like what is found in Amish culture. However, I am trying to explore the more common thread of our modern world, its culture, and social dynamics…
Today’s Commercially owned Industrialized Farms are so mechanized and computerized, very few people are needed to do the work, and so, the idealistic painting, above, has nothing we can relate to or picture in our minds today.
Most people spend too much time indoors at home or the office or the factory or school, and when they do have spare time, phones, tablets, computers and other electronic fixations occupy their minds. Look at not only yourselves, but more importantly, your children. It seems apparent to me that children have lost all connection to their mother, Nature, and have been attached to a mass marketing fake world, dwelling in cities and suburbs where it is quite difficult to find any connection to anything or anybody, let alone Nature and one another.
Why should kids go outdoors again? They have everything they “need” to occupy themselves right there on their computer screens.
Atrophy is “a wasting away or progressive decline” (MerriamWebster.com) and mesmerized teenagers, looking for some kind of meaning in their mostly idle and boring lives, are seeking meaning and purpose through something like “Alice’s looking glass,” which is, of course, their own reflection, often skewed horribly by AI.
They are constantly seeing a completely false and empty picture of themselves and their place in life.
They are looking for recognition. They are looking for something solid they can hang onto. Unfortunately, they find not one solid thing, nor a level ground to walk on.
But they do find more emptiness,meaninglessness, and discouragement — some falling into extreme thoughts — to buy a gun and massacre people, to commit suicide, and some to do both — but always their thoughts are going to extremely negative places of self doubt and futility and frustration. Mesmerized — or perhaps the better word hypnotized — and no one around interested enough to care enough just to give a hug and to lift them back up into reality and hope.
If you allow me to go back to an idealistic picture of First Century life in Israel, Women did not spend their days “silent, barefoot, and pregnant in the kitchen.” Even in some modern cultures everybody pitches in. All have their assigned chores to do so Mom and Dad could complete theirs. Women were industrious, involved in their communities, buying and selling, and generally, like many women today, they managed to do it all and do it well. There were no conflicts of interests between the men and the women. They were too busy with their own chores and responsibilities.
What was considered old is new again. “Career Women” are not anything new. What mindset I think is new but portrayed as old fashioned, was, again, the picture of women “barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen.” At least, I have never found it promoted in the old fashioned Bible… So, don’t put it on God, because it has been conjured up by our fellow man, especially those who subconsciously consider themselves part of the wealth establishment and God ordained positions as if they were Royalty. and above the fray.
Our world has lost its congruence, that homogenous mindset of togetherness, of “an injury to one is an injury to all…”
Am I presenting the old fashioned world as too idealistic? Let me point out that without ideals or standards of morality there is no target to shoot at, no striving for a transcending progress toward personal and social betterment.
And who defines what exactly is “progress?”
The Bible says that everybody falls short and misses the “target” set up by God for making progress. The Bible says all Mankind is bent on sin, doing harm, thinking evil, degenerate thoughts. You don’t agree? Just look around. Catch a news program. Everything is sliding sideways. Sure there are escapes. Good things are happening. However, that avalanche of destructive behaviors is burying the remnant of righteousness. People are at each other’s throats, Bible thumpers as well as everyone else.
I don’t consider this as progress or as betterment. Do you? It misses the target by a lot — a whole lot. I believe God of the Bible doesn’t view this as progress, either.
Too many people today have no chores — certainly not enough purposeful activity to keep them busy and out of trouble (coming from idle minds). So, they stare at computerized screens and degenerate, developing mental and physical disabilities, doing repeated thumb motions, and they develop symptoms very similar to mental dissociative disabilities, living in the “Meta” world, et al. See, https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/dissociative-disorders/symptoms-causes
Does anyone even remember what chores are? “A routine task, especially a household one.” (Google dictionary) Does anyone remember relaxation after a hard day’s work? Children taking a break from homework, playing together outdoors?
What is happening in this generation is no joking matter. It is a looming disaster for the current and following generations. It is nothing less than the unraveling of the threads of civilization. Our Society’s foundation, weak as it was from the beginning, is crumbling as the earth rumbles beneath us.
Am I being Alarmist? You’re damn right!
If you don’t want to be “Woke” up, nothing I write will alarm you. But, “if you want to get out of a hole, stop digging.”
The Bible said things would be like this — devolution and degeneration — situations getting worse and worse on a grand scale. “But understand this: In the last days terrible times will come.” 2 Timothy 3:1, NIV. If you want to be saved from this whole mess, reach out to Jesus, because He is reaching out for you.
