There is a need for collective correction and reproof. One of the things that we forget is that those who cannot accept feedback and who do not listen to truth are disordered and disturbed. The older doctors and priests knew this: they considered the melancholia of Lear a profound imbalance and considered that there suffereer needed to pray and seek the advice of the physicians. And that caring for the intellectually disabled and the mad was part of the role of the family and the church. In this post asylum age, clinically, nothing much has changed

But how then should we live? The narrative of this age is one of hyperregulated licence. There is no need to consider diet, or exercise, or the habits of prayer and meditation and reform that may help our righteousness, but help keep us sane.

Instead we are told that old lie: we were born innocent and we will be as Gods. We were not. We were born Orcish, as brutes.

Titus 3:1-15

¹Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, ²to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show every courtesy to everyone. ³For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, despicable, hating one another. ⁴But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, ⁵he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. ⁶This Spirit he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, ⁷so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. ⁸The saying is sure.

I desire that you insist on these things, so that those who have come to believe in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works; these things are excellent and profitable to everyone. ⁹But avoid stupid controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. ¹⁰After a first and second admonition, have nothing more to do with anyone who causes divisions, ¹¹since you know that such a person is perverted and sinful, being self-condemned.

¹²When I send Artemas to you, or Tychicus, do your best to come to me at Nicopolis, for I have decided to spend the winter there. ¹³Make every effort to send Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way, and see that they lack nothing. ¹⁴And let people learn to devote themselves to good works in order to meet urgent needs, so that they may not be unproductive.

¹⁵All who are with me send greetings to you. Greet those who love us in the faith.

Grace be with all of you.

We were saved despite our instincts and our rationality. We need to recall that from which we came. We need to not live as we did, though the people of the narrative want us to return to this. It now takes considerable strength to go against the spirit of this age, and this requires that we work together, unless we end up alone with our cats and streamed media.

You cannot make a live on facebook. Live in the creation of God, not on the screen.

The modern American woman prides herself on being strong, intelligent and independent. She insists she is just the same as a man in those few areas where she is not superior. She demands the right to be accepted exactly as she is, while claiming the right to modify everything about any man who is so foolish as to become involved with her. She is a goddess – glorious and pagan – requiring nothing more than a mortal male satellite to reflect the light of her shining splendour.

She holds firmly to these beliefs, even as she drugs herself to the gills with Prozac and sees a therapist twice a week, all the while whining to everyone within earshot that the men around her are too intimidated to ask her out.

A gentle word of advice would perhaps be useful here. The fact that men smile nervously at you and sidle away quietly at the first opportunity does not mean that they are intimidated by you. It is also possible that they have simply concluded you are a lunatic.

I once dated a delightful Asian girl, the daughter of immigrants who barely spoke a word of English. It was instructive to discover how this brought out a disdainful racism in many of the upper-middle-class white girls of my acquaintance, of which I had hitherto been unaware. In this, they echoed the defensive contempt of their ancestors, the Imperial British, whose women forced their husbands to exclude from the ruling social circle those men who had “gone native.”

The great achievement of feminism is twofold. First, it allowed young men to obtain easy sex without the price of marriage or a prostitute. Second, it allowed men over the age of 60 to exit the workforce and be maintained by the labors of their newly employed daughters. When one considers the evidence, one is forced to conclude that Ms. Steinhem and Ms. Friedan were either appallingly stupid or agent provocateurs of the dread Patriarchy.

Even so, I do not despise American women. Quite to the contrary, I very much admire those who possess the courage, the character and the feminine spirit to reject the poisoned propaganda of the self-destructive Sisterhood and be women. It requires far more genuine strength and independence for a young American woman to become a lady today than it does for her to devolve into a faux male – those who manage the feat are princesses for whom a man might well wish to slay a dragon or three.

Yeah, we are being asked to believe. In a lie. Do not follow this. Be gracious, be gentle, take that two breaths that allow you to say the gracious word and not the first snarky, orcish thing that enters your head. And, if like me, this is a continual challenge… use coffee as needed.