The Tumbling of the Gods - Part 2

The descent into the reality of our unworthiness 

Whether we like to hear it or not, it needs to be said - we aren't the heirs of western civilization.  We are the survivors.  We are the descendants of the ones who survived.   We aren't the best, the brightest or the bravest.  They are long gone.  The two world wars wiped them from the Earth, on both sides.  The 100 million dead were the glory of the West and were led tragically to their destruction fighting against their brothers.  We are all that remain.

Beyond the burden of this knowledge, we are left with only one question worth asking:

Do we have it in us to rise to the challenge of this age?  Can we gather once last cavalry charge, one last defense, in the name of our ancestors?

Can we summon what is good and just and pure in us to stare down the Wasteland that is the result of our annihilation, daring us to be added to the long list of vanished civilizations, never talked about, never mourned, never honored?

Will all that be left will be dust beneath the feet of other civilizations as they tread where we our ancestors once did, never contemplating what was there before? 

Don't think that this hasn't happened.  The entirety of human history is this.  Things come and things go.  It is in our religions, past and present.  They had different names for it - Armageddon.  Ragnorok.  Megiddo. 

For those of us aware of these prophecies, we never contemplated that we might be living amongst these words now, as we sit and read and as we watch our televisions.  It's always portrayed as in the future to come, not to be worried about.  But eventually, the bill comes due.  The piper has to be paid.

To use one of the dominant myths of Western civilization, the Holy Grail, right now, our civilization is the Fisher King from Grail literature.  He is a king of great renown.  But in battle he is wounded and his ability to create has been cut from him.  He lives in a castle that cannot be found by normal men.  The land, tied intimately with his wound, grows no life.  It is dead and cannot create in perfect symmetry to the King's status and will not grow green and plentiful again until the King is healed.   But his wound never heals unless someone, usually a knight, comes to find his castle and upon seeing the King, asks the question of pure Christian charity - what ails you?

We are the knight.  We have somehow found ourselves at the castle.  We are dining in his hall, eating his food.  We see that he is wounded.

Do we ask the right question?  Do we heal the Fisher King by asking what ails him?

Or do we fail like the other knights, succumbing to our selfish desires and greed, leaving him wounded and land dead and wasted around the castle?

The choice is ours alone.  No one can make it for us.

This is the challenge of Western man.  Thousands of years of history and culture have led to this moment.  Whether we are the best and brightest or just what survived, it is on our shoulders.

Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
"To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his Gods."

From: Horatius of Lays of Ancient Rome by Thomas Babington Macauley, 1842