Appointed But Once to Live
There is a tendency among modern men to downplay the importance of round numbers and the like. This tendency has some obvious sources, but they do not particularly interest me and they are not particularly relevant here, and so I will be ignoring them (as they deserve). Despite this artificial countervailing tendency, we still all recognize the importance of round numbers (particularly of large ones), and so it was certainly cause for celebration when the pastor emeritus at my former church turned ninety a few years ago[1]. Similarly, there will undoubtedly be some celebrations[2] when we observe the two hundred and fiftieth birthday of the United States (the Semiquincentennial) in July of next year. On a smaller scale, I am forty today.
Whenever my birthday comes around, I think of the words of Scripture:
And the Lord God said, “My spirit shall not abide in these humans forever, because they are flesh, but their days shall be one hundred twenty years.”
— Genesis 6
and a bit later (when Creation had degenerated even further):
As for the days of our years, in them are seventy years; and if men should be in strength, eighty years.
— Psalm 89
Now, fairly good health and reasonable longevity run in my family, so I am likely a bit shy of halfway through my years (barring misadventure or effective malice); I will, in fact, likely exceed the rounded average of the Psalter by a handful of years (likely five). That suits me just fine — I have no transhumanist aspirations to live centuries. I find myself thinking and planning in terms of centuries or longer, but such things must be left in the hands of other men, for my plans, insofar as they are mine personally and depend upon me personally, will one day perish with me. We must always balance planning as if we will live forever against recognizing that we may very well not see tomorrow.
Although I am not (quite) halfway through my life (and I lack whatever drives men to have a mid-life crisis, or, more accurately, I have what men who have mid-life crises lack), forty remains a nice round number and so it seems a good time to reflect upon some things: I am an American; if pressed, I would have to confess that I am a Californian (should my speech patterns have not already made that obvious) — yes, even more than a Tennessean. I spent more than a third of my life in California, and that certainly included essentially all of my formative years. And I was not off in the hinterlands (and, yes, California does have hinterlands — I have hiked most of them); I was born in Los Angeles, I grew up in Los Angeles, and I did not leave Los Angeles until undergraduate. And yet I do not live in LA; in fact, I do not even live in California — I live in East Tennessee. Now, I am not truly a stranger to this place, for my family have lived in these hills for many years — there are weathered headstones out in the hills and valleys that bear family names. And yet California will always be my home, at least to some degree and in some ways, but it is a California that no longer exists. Just as some of my family line traces to parts of Germany that are no longer (for now) part of Germany, so the California of my parents, of my childhood, and of my memories no longer exists. By the time I moved, I had become a stranger in a strange land. The names were all largely the same, but the faces had changed. A nation is more than its soil, but it cannot be less.
Under international law, if such a thing truly existed and cared for Whites, I would surely be recognized as the equivalent of an ‘internally displaced person’. I do not say this for sympathy or similar; I say this because every White man must know how late the hour truly is: The enemy have already captured significant (both in terms of size and in terms of importance) chunks of our territory. We are being both passively and actively genocided — even if many of our fellows do not accept, or even, in many cases, merely recognize, that reality.
This is neither cause nor call for demoralization or despair; rather, it is a call to look reality squarely in the face, accept the reality of it, and then commit the fullness of our efforts and our resources to change such reality. We face an uphill battle, but our enemies would never stand a chance if the field were level. We are soldiers in the forever war and our duty ends only in death. Christ has already won the ultimate victory, but He has left it to us to wage what remains of the war here in time. Satan is not operating under any illusions, and we must not allow ourselves to do so either.
That we live in a time of and for war is no warrant to forego the everyday — you must still work, you must take a wife, you must still have children. We, the righteous, the sons of God, have been at war with Satan and his children from the beginning, and we will be at war with him until the very end; among our most sacred duties is raising up and teaching the next generation that will take up the sword and shield when our hands grow too weak to wield them. Satan is strong, but our Master is stronger; Satan’s children are numerous and powerful, but God has already won the ultimate victory and promised us that we will share in it. We will do our duty — come what may.
I have another forty or so years on this Earth, and I know that the years ahead will provide greater and more numerous challenges than those that lie behind me. As a teacher — more, a teacher of teachers —, I have elected the stricter Judgement and I have declared before all the world my intention to see Satan and his every stronghold thrown down, his altars destroyed, and his children devoted to destruction. This makes me a target, but, as I have said before: I will be removed from the board not a second before God permits it. I know that we have already won in eternity, and I believe that we will win here in time. So, thank you to every one of you who has placed his or her trust and confidence in me — I will endeavor to live up to my office and your rightful expectations.
God with us.
