Straw Men

I was reading one of Arsen's posts in Ghulf Genes , when it not only dawned on me how to make nice and neat links to references (such as that I just made), but also that when he wrote in comment:

... in movies of the time of Christ, people behave and speak as if they already possessed what two thousand years of theology would eventually create...

and the overwhelming intimacy of the Holy just sort of crashed in on me: what a miracle to live then! What a miracle to live in the time of true religious freedom and ferment! It is a short time, very short. In the history of Islam, the true period of wonder ended shortly after the death of the Prophet, and lasted no longer than the violent death of his son-in-law, Ali. Then all became politics and dogma.

We have become dry as straw men, and we would blaze up and burn and be blown away like lightning fired straw were we to find ourselves in the presence of Inspiration. Thank goodness, then, there is nothing to inspire. Oh, we have plenty of resentment and anger and greed to color the skeins of our politics with the unnatural dyes of violence and wickedness, but we have no inspiration; we have political agenda, we have glorious competition with winner-take-all, we have plenty of carrot and stick, but we have no inspiration in our blood, and we have become dessicated.

The world is on fire now just because we are men of straw. We think our political and religious fervors are signs of life, but they are nothing but the straw crackling and jumping in the fire.
When concerned with the Holy, we are passionate without burning: we are filled with protean liquids!
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