It's a Things Fall Apart Thing

Dear America,

stunning.

apparently --  on average -- Americans drink a disgusting 44 gallons of soda a year.

That's nearly a gallon a week! of this syrupy, seductive, seltzer mindlessly being consumed and rotting our bodies from the core. [oh and btw, that is apparently down from a whopping 58 gallons a year, considered to be the case back in 1998...ew]

Albeit some of us have cut back a wee bit after considering the myriad of health hazards all for the joy of a fleeting sugar buzz over ice, but fair to say -- far too many of us still don't think anything of it.

Which brings me to a revelation -- our quality of thought and choice of libation seems to coincide. 

Who would have thought, right, that the new nectar of the Gods for the ages, young and old, would come in a carbonated 12 ounce can and grow into a rabid addiction greater than any religion.

Last Sunday -- Easter -- when watching my favorite preacher, Joel Osteen -- he once again thrilled me with a new perspective.  And I will be quick to explain, given attention span these days is about as long as a nano-second, a tweet, or a jingle...

In his usual charm, he says, basically -- and improvising with my usual flair -- Jesus wasn't all born in a manger just "to start a religion."  According to the Trinity, God became man so that WE could grow to be in relationship with Him, surely in the hope of being better humans.  Tapping into this Higher Power for rooting out our higher purpose, understanding a kinder, gentler way to connect and coexist with each other and ourselves, and certainly, to bring meaning to life itself, is at the very core of this relationship. 

And it's like -- as in the way of Coca-Cola to the Kardashians -- leave it to man to ruin a good thing.

Isn't this always the case...

We take things too far.

We abuse the bounty.

We waste ourselves away, forgetting the art of moderation and self-control.

We take things to extremes, selfishly abandoning our unique ability to connect to a Spiritual Guidance so great and  so wonderful;  day after day after day, we allow our culture, our community of fellow humans -- not God -- to  dictate by default, without thinking two blinks about it.  

From soda pop to reality television to music to how we adorn our bodies (or rather, how we don't adorn)... to who leads in our personal affairs, our health... education, our leaders in high places of government  -- it's all left to the manipulation of an ideology totally separate from upholding any connection to this spirit and relationship set forth with one life here on earth in Jesus. [And feel free to pick a religion, a way, a light, a relationship, of your own choice; as we all know, even Atheists: God is God.  Whoever you make your God, even if it comes with a glance in the mirror, is your God] 

But that's just it.

Mankind -- in America, anyway -- has been invaded with a rogue  band of marauders, taking us further and further from the Divine Providence from which we came AND growing into an organized machine, now parading as the "evolved," and "intelligent," ever-so-conscious characters and social engineers centered upon a great -- but hands down, over the lips, down the hatch, totally ridiculous --  progressive experiment.  Mankind in America is not only drinking the kool-aid -- but drunk on love of self.

Over the years, isn't it funny how revelations come and go, and evolve even.

Having said that, here's to another morsel of magnificent proportion from my papa, and excavated from the Wall Street Journal, here: Two New Saints. Now What?  [And thank you, Dan Henninger.]

It's a good read.

Oh to venture down the road growing less and less traveled -- to discover our own sainthood, the exceptional byproduct at the core of being in relationship with something greater than ourselves, within the confines of this public domain, a place where seemingly only the salacious and syrupy survive.  How do we do that?   Now I'm no Saint -- but suffice it to say, day in and day out, this is proving to be quite the elusive endeavor the more evolved, and actualized, and modern, and human -- souped-up-on-sugar -- we get.

"Things fall apart; the center cannot hold."

"Many people discovered new gods in political causes. In the 1980s, the U.S. Catholic bishops conference worked tirelessly for a 'nuclear-weapons freeze.' Is anyone surprised that global warming in time became a premodern religious movement, obsessed with arcane dogmatics and eliminating the heretical Deniers? A defining event of this era of secular mysticism is the Obama administration saying the Little Sisters of the Poor must bring their charity hospitals into conformance with the state's beliefs on human reproduction."

And now back to the 44 gallons of soda, on average...it's a real thing.

It's a real stat.

And it's just one of the many symptoms defining our depression, our cultural condition.

Now what?

Make it a Good Day, G