All is rancor, all is controversial, every single thing is a hot-button issue, there is turmoil over every  aspect of life, not a thing goes by that isn’t debated with heated words. Are we, among other things, down the rabbit hole of psycho-spiritual chastisement — or better said, an emotional breakdown?

The U.S. and much of the world (perhaps it’s still fine in Nauru) are having a nervous breakdown as a prelude to what could be full-scale insurrection or a civil war.

Civil war?

Oh, the truculence. Nothing can be discerned with civility — not in the age of Facebook (which should fall by the wayside), not with Twitter (which defines our attention spans; no one, it seems, needs to read in-depth to be a cottage expert anymore); not in the age of QAnon.

And no one we disagree with — whatever it might be we disagree about — is not suspect.

Pandemic? No pandemic? 

It is wild.

(Wait till you see what we’ll have soon about those labs in Wuhan.)

“Fake news” is simply news one doesn’t want to hear — that doesn’t fit a personal or cultural or cultic narrative.

Some things (abortion, gene-meddling, euthanasia, poverty, blurred genders, pollution) are worth fighting against. One must. Fight for what is right. Work for it. Insist on the sanctity of family, marriage — at every turn.

But do it in the right fashion and at right moments — not constantly, not blindly, not with the caterwauling rage of a devil.

Back in 1969 Cardinal Josef Ratzinger predicted it and said, “The future of the Church can and will exude from those whose roots are deep and who live from the pure fullness of their faith. It will not exude from those who accommodate themselves merely to the passing moment, or from those who criticize others and assume that they themselves are infallible measuring rods.”

Welcome to the land, the era, the meltdown of sectarianism, in various countries, in various walks of life, on all sides, Left, Right, above, beneath, in various factions of increasingly splintered religions.

Cultism has as a first manifestation: obsession. Next is exclusion. Hostility to outsiders. Passwords. Passcodes. Required beliefs (however alien to the truth known in deeper realms of spirit).

Truth is now subjective.

Truth also is now in the balance.

The ego blinds us to it.

It no longer exists, does common reality — objectivity — for a gigantic bloc of humanity.

Facts are what fit an agenda.

And so now we have absolutist fanaticism, which struggles in a direction opposite that of the equanimity preached by Jesus.

We are in a chastisement of confusion. Of unreality. Of upheaval. Of diatribe. Confusion always has been a hallmark of the enemy.

So has rancor.

The most popular podcaster uses God’s Name in vain and profanities one hesitates to even abbreviate with blank letters (one is twelve letters long).

That’s what we’re following (down the rabbit hole)?

Remarkable it is how many Christians have been deceived and how many non-Christians — humanists — have been even more deceived and how there doesn’t seem to be a real definition in our time of deception (just as there is no longer any objective reality).

Everyone grabs for the throat of the nearest opponent — or better, wings a venomous e-mail (or venomous post; perhaps not a bad thing — that Facebook went offline last week. Peace, at least for a few moments!).

Let this all pass you by.

Don’t partake of the poison (nor dispense it). Fight the right battles, not over everything. Do it in the right way, not with Satan’s rage.

“The final battle between the Lord and the kingdom of Satan will be about Marriage and the Family,” Sister Lucia of Fatima once said.

Don’t be afraid, she added — because whoever works for the sanctity of Marriage and the Family will always be opposed in every way, because this is the decisive issue. Then she concluded: “nevertheless, Our Lady has already crushed his head.”

Just sail. Fight the right fights — not with every passerby, at every turn. Work for, instead of against. Navigate with evenness. Keep the sails white (confession!). Drink not of the poison, when someone tries to goad you. This comes from the chalice of the enemy. Be a ship with sails upright through the narrow straits of this chaos. Sail in prayer and silence.

Just steer with headsail upright and while waves roil the shores, while whirlpools create their vortices, while whitecaps churn, the water ahead of you will eventually and momentously turn cerulean and placid. “Well done, good and faithful servant!” you will hear after the din.

[resources: books of inspiration]