Post Lucem Tenebrae

Sharing Options
Show Outline with Links

Introduction

A week ago, my wife and I just finished a delightful vacation in France and Switzerland, and it was really something. There was wine, and there was cheese, and historical sites, and there was wine, and then some food, and then a cheese course. It was a time. I am still full.

Among the historical sites, we visited a fortified village on top of a ridge named Les Baux-de-Provence. It was at one time a Huguenot stronghold, and across the top of the window in the picture I took of the old chapel you can see the engraved motto of the Reformation, Post Tenebras Lux. After darkness, light.

Now I can testify that the French know their onions, and their tenderloin, and their fish, and their cheese, and their wines, both red and white. But sadly, with the exception of a handful of loyal sons and daughters, they don’t know their own history, and even when they do know some of the facts of that history, they don’t know the weight or spiritual significance of those facts. The decline into ignorance has been tragic. But it certain cases, it has been plainly purposeful, not ignorance at all, and that brings us to the point. There is a willful element to it.

Les Baux-de-Provence

As we were walking up to the village, we were greeted with a series of displays, some works of, you know, Art. They were cut-out silhouettes of eight-to-ten-foot women, of the kind you might get if a manufacturer of those redneck mudflaps had a really bad fever dream, and decided that what was most needed was to get his creations up to a size where the nipples could be as big as marshmallows. As in, you know, totally unnecessary.

But it was no fever dream. There was a point to it. The last one in the series was placed in the window of that ruined chapel, so that all the visitors to this landmark site could walk up to Huguenot chapel and find themselves in the role of voyeurs. There she was, inside the window, no shades drawn. Look above the window, and see the faithfulness of the Reformation. Post tenebras lux. After darkness, light. But then look down at the window, and what you will see is a Moabite woman straight from Baal-Peor. Post lucem tenebrae. After light, darkness.

They are deliberately inviting the darkness in. They are summoning it. They love the darkness because their deeds are evil (John 3:19).

The whole thing was stinking obvious, but at the same time there was this gauzy veneer of deniability to it. What are you talking about? This is Art, you Philistine.

Speaking of Totally Unnecessary . . .

Then there are those who object to my choice of word pictures. Why do you have to write like that? I do not function with their luxurious veneer of deniability. I did say that the nipples were as big as marshmallows, and I am not their kind of artist. I am a word mechanic, and not an artist of their ilk. I have no cape, I have no beret, and I have no cane. So why did I say that? Do I not know the meaning of decorum? Do I not understand propriety and respect for women? Well, I do, actually, which is the whole point.

Modern Christians are being gas-lit, if you want to know the truth about it. That is, we are being assaulted and insulted by the most flagrant sorts of outrages, and if we take any commensurate notice of it, that is taken as evidence that we are the ones with the problem. On my way to visit a historic site, I am confronted with a series of out-sized females displaying their wares, with nipples as noted before, and the world acts as though it is perfectly okay (according to the canons of Art) to do this kind of thing, but to say that this is what was done (if the “saying” conveys any hint of disapproval at all) is to prove to all and sundry that the critic is fixated on women’s breasts. Man. He must have some kind of a problem.

That is how gas-lighting works. That is the technique. Textbook.

But don’t you know, Wilson, the approved critics have you down for a misogynist? Okay. Round me up one hundred of those critics, and let’s have a look at all their Netflix accounts. I’ll show you misogyny.

Until It Doesn’t Work Anymore

Look around for a minute. All the normals, millions of them, are surrounded by trannies militant, cross-dressers, dykes-on-bikes, slut-walks, rainbow-painted faces, bio-males smoking the women in athletic events, and so on, and if one of these normals draws disapproving attention to any aspect of this gaudy display of sexual buncombe, the eyebrows of all the cool kids go up. What kind of weirdo says that kind of thing? Well, a normal person does, and the actual definition of weird is established by God, and not by us in some kind of referendum.

All of this is nothing more or less than a cultural frenzy and, as a frenzy, it will pass. There will come a time when everybody looks back at this time of ours and wonders aloud, “What were they thinking?”

Incoherence doesn’t work. Stupidity has no long term viability. Insanity should never be confused with progress. Lunacy is not sustainable. Hallucinations are not the same thing as a plan. Derangement suffers under the handicap of being deranged. Delirium produces more and more delirium until it eventually runs out of steam, and has to lie on the floor for a bit, panting. Absurdity does not compute. Hysteria is not the path to cultural stability. I trust that the point has been made clear. In the long run, madness cannot be the way of the sages.

But it will work as long as it does work. However, it will only continue to work in this way as long as the normals keep their collective horse laugh contained. But the time is coming when the shoulders of Western culture will start to shake. When that starts to happen, look out.