Lawrence Hall
Light, Love, Song,
Feast, and Dance
Someone wrote that if you were a mile away from the
Battle of Hastings (October 1066), you not only couldn’t hear any of it but unless
you were in direct line of sight you wouldn’t know it was happening.
Similarly, a current attempt (so far unsuccessful) to overthrow
our freely-elected government also probably could not be heard a mile away, with
the flash-bangs and occasional gunfire subsumed within the noise of traffic and
commerce.
Within a mile of the Capitol are thousands of businesses
and homes connected by busy streets and highways. A man or woman coming off
shift and burrowing within his or her own peaceful thoughts while enjoying a
book or podcast over a light supper might well do so without hearing or even hearing
of the crude grasp for illegitimate power by a physical and moral coward urging
his followers into dubious tumult from the safety of a glowing screen in his
bunker.
And that is because life goes on. In his A Preface to
Paradise Lost, C. S. Lewis writes,
In
the midst of a world of light and love, of song and feast and dance, he [Satan]
could find nothing to think of more interesting than his own prestige.
And it is the joys of light, love, song, feast, and dance
that are important. An omelette and a cup of coffee might be feast enough for
someone who is going on shift or off shift, and a book to discuss with a friend
later is a feast of the intellect, a dance of the Poirot-ish Little Grey Cells,
a celebration of light, while the nimble waiter’s excursions among the booths
and table are a dance indeed.
Any man, even a president, who withdraws into an unnatural
obsession with his feelings and moods, hugging to himself all the satanic
resentments that poison his mind and heart, is leading himself into a
nothingness. He would resent the idea that no one would mourn his passing, but
more than that he would be shocked that he would not be missed at all, no more
than anyone would miss an earache or an abscessed tooth.
Those who live in light, love, song, feast, and dance celebrate
civilization, and want to share the joy, not grasp it selfishly. If the good among
us cannot hear the self-wounding bellowings of those who have broken faith, it is
because they hear the stronger, and more joyful voice of truth.
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