(Reposted to restore missing link from other published posts.)

churlishness: 1. Like or pertaining to a churl. Rude; ill-bred; surly; austere; sullen; rough in temper; uncivil. Selfish; narrow-minded; avaricious (Century Dictionary, online, February 28, 2022)

What determines a person’s character?

In a previous blog, I discussed character building. When you encounter a person, you can tell what they are like by the way they act. If they are self-centered, they will rarely discuss you or your interested. They focus on what is of interest to them, rarely asking about you. And if they do, they will quickly turn the conversation into a discussion about themselves.

Who of us have not been guilty of doing this?

It is a wearying world to see parents just shrug their shoulders, cluck their tongues, and shake their heads saying, “What can you do? It is just the way (teens or kids or…fill in the blank) are.”

Parents…

Theirs are the children who think the world owes them a living. They have had their self-created hardships, like mismanagement of money, covered by their parents. Wreck a car? Vehicle breaks down? Mom or dad will fix the problem for you.

Someone at work tells you to do something you don’t think is fair? Mommy will come down and confront the offending superior. (Yes. That really happens. It happened at my office about 6 years ago.)

Schools don’t teach the children how to do basic housework, like sweeping and cooking. Neither do the parents.

Parents have failed to give their children moral boundaries and bearings. They gave in long ago to the concept that the children should be allowed to decide their own course in life. Without any life experiences, training, guidelines.

Try having an unskilled worker handle heavy equipment on a busy highway and tell them to figure it out on their own. That will end well.

Parents essentially have become nothing more than baby generators with little care or concern for the generations to come.

Future…

Or their own future when they are old. Their children will not be there to help them. They were raised to think only about themselves. When mom and dad can’t do anything for them anymore, they will be sent to their own “daycare”, called a “senior living center” and left to live out the remainder of their days under the care of strangers who have little concern for their well-being. At least, not to the degree that a close family can give.

Yet we do the same thing with the minds, hearts, and souls of our young people. We have given up on teaching them anything because the “experts” have convinced them that they don’t know enough or have the skill to teach them.

Even though these same parents usually were the ones to teach them how to eat, dress themselves, tie their shoelaces, and have manners.

All that has been thrown to the wayside. Daycares popped up to raise those children because the parents didn’t want to or didn’t have time to raise them. They were too busy trying to earn money for all the expenses incurred in preoccupying the children with extra curricular activities.

Nuclear families…

It wasn’t long ago that at least one parent stayed home to raise the children they chose to bear. The children emulated the parents in how they interacted with others, and what values they should adopt.

No parent was perfect, but the nuclear family was in tact – often extending to grandparents and relatives nearby.

Now, divorce is common. Children are driven by instability. Their rearing is left to those who claim superiority in training children.

Experts?

In reality, how many times do those same experts practice experiments on training techniques? Old ways are tossed aside as “outdated” while their new-fangled attempts at educating children are constantly replaced by yet another innovative concept.

The kids are left to become befuddled, as with Core Curriculum mathematics. Individuality is taught out of them and they are not trained to think for themselves. Computers are their go-to for research. Reading and cursive writing are optional, as are Physical Education in grammar school and Health Sciences in upper grades.

Instead, they are taught how to put condoms on bananas in kindergarten, and encouraged by misleading educational techniques how to smoke and do drugs. Sex among the young, smoking, vaping, and drug use is on the rise. Something not common but a few short decades ago when parents took responsibility for educating their own children in morality and life skills.

Rise of anarchy…

What used to be a great source of grief, such as a student putting gum under the desk, has turned into the common acts of violence among the young. Those in charge wring their hands when students get raped. They have no longer have any recourse when they encounter physical violence to themselves or students. Punishment has gone by the wayside as parent demanded that no one touch their precious child, regardless of the misconduct. Yet they themselves will not reprimand that child, either.

And, so, the children have been raised in the way they are to go, without boundaries or morals, and left to their own devices. Like the children in “Lord of the “Flies”, those who bully the best are the ones that rise in the ranks of power.

We can see the results in today’s society.

What occurred in teaching over two generations ago has now become the accepted norm in today’s world. Those who still sound the clarion call to return to a real values based system are shunned. Their names are besmirched. And their reputation is smeared by those who promote nothing but hatred against those who try to put law and order back into our social lives.

Hope for tomorrow?

For those of us who still cling to honor, values, Truth, and Faith, it seems as those there is no turning this Titanic. The iceberg of total collapse of society is in sight. And those in the wings who are rubbing their hands together eagerly to take control of a lawless world are become increasingly brazen.

But will that happen? Will that occur as man plans?

Tower of Babel…

Centuries ago, there was a very proud man. His name was Nimrod. He ruled a rich area in the Middle East called Babylon.

There came a time when he decided that he wanted to be the ruler of the universe. So he commanded that a tower be constructed that would reach to the throne of God.

God, seeing what he was up to, put a very innovative halt to the construction project. Instead of just knocking it down with an earthquake or from an act of war, He caused the tongue of the workers to be changed. For the first time, what was once just a single language understood by everyone in the world, it became confounded. Since no one could understand each other, the tower work was unable to be completed.

As is true with many of the Jewish stories, this one has shown up in many different cultures as man began to drift away from their place of origin. And that would make sense, as the disruption of common languages would cause those who were speaking alike to band together and head for different parts of the world.

But I digress…

What has this to do with our society today?

For one thing, we are very much in a similar place to those ancients who lived all those centuries ago. Like them, we have managed to be able to communicate to each other through human or artificial translators. (Google Translator anyone?)

For the first time in the history of man, we have been able to map the entire globe and even movements of the population through artificial means. Satellites regularly spy on our property, taking pictures without warning and publishing them to the world. Surveillance systems are in place to listen in and record our every movement, especially in large cities. The attempts as unifying humanity under a single leader is in the works once more as the barriers of countries are broken down into a single homogenous landscape through the means of international organizations and treaties.

We are not far off from that more primitive attempt of ruling the world and removing God from His Throne.

Instead of a building, we are using electronics. And instead of God, we have computers and robotic means to generate anything we desire.

We have become like God.

Or so we think…

But the world has never historically survived under any single dictatorship for very long. The various regimes that tried such a scheme failed to produce any sort of Nirvana that was promised. People were suppressed, denied basic human rights, tortured, killed when they began to rebel against such treatments.

Captivity of human beings will never survive. Especially when ruled by other human beings who think themselves superior to humanity.

So, too, will this idea crumble.

But it will take time before the free world understands that they are simply a frog that was put in a pot of cold water decades ago. The temperature has been slowly rising, and, until it gets to the critical point, very few will listen to those sounding the warning bells.

To get the strength and attention of the masses, something beyond our ability as a human will be necessary to interceded.

And it is coming.

Soon.

Getting tough to hang on…

For now, we need to tie a knot at the end of our spiritual rope and hang on for the ride. We know that we will win in the end. But it will come at a high cost.

None of us can foresee what part we will play in the future. We do not know what will happen to us. All we know is that not everyone will be destroyed. And there will be the remnant who will bring back the human race from the brink of disaster to civil society once more.

When? No one knows.

For now, it is enough to live for the present. We cannot worry about the future. It isn’t here yet.

Neither are the Graces to survive.

But we need to learn to lean on the God Who loves each and every one of us.

Lean on Him and rest. When we are called up for the battle, we will have learned to Trust Him Who made us for His purposes.

And for this very time to come.