Okay, I’ll confess, I have a bad habit, the habit of watching what’s going on in the world and searching for trends in contemporary events. One trend I have noted during the last few years is that the hand of God seems to be moving. Admittedly this movement is more nuanced than I—as a minister—would like to see, but nonetheless, if you really look at national and world events, you can see these changes, no matter how minute, actually taking place. And as time goes on, this movement seems to be picking up steam.
Although I am not Roman Catholic, I still occasionally read some of their publications on the web. In early September, Crisis Magazine published a piece by a writer by the name of Kennedy Hall titled Aslan Is On The Move.
Those of us who have read C.S.Lewis’s series, The Chronicles of Narnia, in particular The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, know that Lewis’ Lion Aslan was an allegorical representation of Christ; although Lewis himself claimed that Aslan is not an allegorical portrayal of Christ, but rather a suppositional incarnation of Christ. It is reported that in one of the last letters Lewis wrote, he said:
“Since Narnia is a world of Talking Beasts, I thought Christ would become a Talking Beast there, as He became a man here. I pictured Him becoming a lion there because (a) the lion is supposed to be the king of beasts; (b) Christ is called “The Lion of Judah” in the Bible; (c) I’d been having strange dreams about lions when I began writing the work.”
So if you remember Narnia, you also remember Mr. Beaver telling the human children; “Aslan is on the move.”
Perhaps some might call people like Mr. Kennedy and myself, overly optimistic and perhaps a bit too romantic as we see parallels in literature and the real world, but I believe the using the concept of Aslan being on the move, as a means to identify the subtle occurrences that are happening, is a fair analogy.
I would also remind you that C.S. Lewis tells us that Aslan is not a tame lion.
Now bear with me as I digress for a moment. As you recall, Jesus set a precedent for Christians in his use of parables, short stories designed to make a point. And in my opinion, the story of the Old Man and the Flood quite aptly described a condition that many of us are in.
You see, there was once an Old Man who lived in a community down by the river. One day the rains began and soon the region was experiencing one of those floods that only happen once in a hundred years. The authorities recognized the danger and sent the Police out through the town, knocking on doors, and telling the residents that they needed to evacuate as soon as possible.
The old man assured the Police that he would be fine, as he knew that God was watching over him.
The rains continued unabated and the river was soon out of its banks, water was now running through the streets. The Governor was advised of the situation and he called out the National Guard who sent the big all-wheel-drive military trucks through the flooded streets to evacuate the stragglers.
The National Guard truck pulled up in front of the Old Man’s house and the soldiers waded through the knee-deep water to carry the old man to safety, but again he refused to leave as he knew that God was watching over him.
Hours later the flood waters were so deep that the Old Man was forced to retreat to the upper floor of his house and a small boat of firemen trained in water rescue knocked on his window pleading for the old man to climb out the window into the boat so they could take him to safety. Again he refused.
Finally, with the waters rising into the second floor of his house, the old man was forced to climb out the gabled window onto the roof and cling to the brick chimney. But much to his surprise a Coast Guard helicopter came by and lowered a rescue basket for the old man. And for a final time he refused and moments later the raging current pulled him from his chimney and he perished in the flood.
The next thing he knew, the old man was in heaven, standing before God himself.
The old man fell to his knees, clasped his hands, burst into tears, and pleaded with God.
“My Lord, why did you let me drown in that flood?”
Like the Father that is to all mankind, God looked down, placed his magnificent hand on the old man’s shoulder to bring him solace and peace, and the Lord God said unto him;
“My child, I sent the Police to warn you, the National Guard to lead you, firemen to take you away and I even sent the Coast Guard to rescue you. What more did you want?”
It’s cliché to say that God works in strange and mysterious ways, but the statement is none accurate.
Synchronicity is a concept first introduced by psychologist Carl Jung “to describe circumstances that appear meaningfully related yet lack a causal connection, anomalous events that happen, seemingly for no reason. Almost everyone has experienced one of these events. Who is to say that such events are not divine providence? In the case of our fictional Old Man and the Flood, God touched the hearts and minds of various people, causing them to go to the aid of the Old Man.
How can we not, at least entertain that God is touching the hearts and minds of people throughout the Nation, and the world, causing them to band together as one voice screaming, enough is enough we want a return to traditional values.
My Brothers and Sisters, I am past retirement age and all of my life I have heard people gathered in coffee shops on the main street in small town USA, at town hall meetings, and on all varieties of media, complaining about how our elected officials were not bringing about the legislative changes we demanded.
James E. Wallis Jr., the Liberal theologian, writer, teacher, and political activist, best known as the founder and editor of Sojourners magazine, a position he was forced out of by the cancel culture, once wrote in one of his books that you could identify the politicians in Washington as they were the men and women who were constantly sticking a finger into their mouths to wet it, then sticking the finger into the air to determine in which direction the wind was blowing, then running as fast with the wind as humanly possible. What Mr. Wallis was attempting to demonstrate was the tendency of politicians to embrace public opinion and run with it regardless of how it might quickly change.
Wallis’ analogy is a failed premise, in that most politicians ignore the feelings of the majority and only act upon the whims of the behind-the-scenes wealthy elites that keep the politicians in power as well as the concerns of a highly vocal minority that is overly emphasized by a very biased left-leaning media. The concerns of the vast majority of Americans have gone unnoticed for decades as the establishment Republicans and the increasingly Marxist Democrats have continued with business as usual.
But now we see a change. Perhaps Aslan, IS on the move.
The anger and frustrations that have been felt by the average American have now reached the boiling point, and from all expectations, the pot will boil over on November Eighth.
Currently, all polls are indicating that Republican candidates have a slight advantage over their competitors on the Democratic side. Some statisticians are insisting that leading polling firms are under-sampling Republican voters by as much as five percent. If this is true then we are about to witness the proverbial red wave as voters overwhelmingly choose Republican candidates.
Assuming of course Republicans take back control of both houses of Congress, we must not rest on our laurels.
One of the Bishops here at the Archdiocese of Saint Michael’s sent me a text message with a tiny URL that led to a YouTube video, that she thought I should watch.
The video was an excerpt from what was an hour-long episode of Flash Point by The Victory Channel. One of the panelists said,
“We have to shift the culture, we are the force behind change in America and it will only keep moving if we keep the heat on it.”
An Evangelical minister by the name of Lance Wallnau said that and I might mention that reportedly USA Today described Wallnau as one of only three evangelical leaders to accurately predict Donald Trump’s Presidency from the moment he began his campaign.
Whether they are right or wrong is immaterial, but a lot of people believe that God influenced Trump to run for office and in doing so, acting through Trump, God began a movement that could potentially spread worldwide, a movement to take back our culture from the globalists that want to destroy everything humans have accomplished for the last three hundred years not to mentions their goal of ending Christianity as we know it.
Most of the Republican candidates running for office are, like Trump was, Washington outsiders. They are not tied to the establishment and the majority are running, not on the establishment platform, but on the populist movement’s ideals. I prefer to use the term Populist and not MAGA as these ideals actually predate Trump’s tenure and the MAGA movement. These ideals expressed by this group of would-be freshmen legislators are based on the same demands and concerns that Americans have expressed for the last fifty years or more.
Think about what Wallnau said, “We have to shift the culture, we are the force behind change in America and it will only keep moving if we keep the heat on it.”
Many of us, myself included, have been content to set back, not get involved, and maybe pray from time to time that God will establish a change in America. We have become complacent, we have accepted the status quo, allowing our representatives to go unchecked as they conduct the business of the puppet masters and not the business of we the people. Some religious leaders have even gone as far as to say that our current situation
is due to God abandoning us because we as a nation turned from him.
I wonder how often God sent someone or something to cause us to change, just as he sent people to save the Old Man in the Flood, but like that old man, we ignored God’s plan.
Perhaps Aslan is on the move. Perhaps he has touched the hearts of parents concerned about the false teachings in our schools and now they are keeping the heat on school boards. God has opened the eyes of people who are tired of what is happening in our cities and counties and now they are turning out to council meetings just to keep the heat on. And if all predictions are true, a new class of freshmen legislators will take control of congress and we must demand that they keep the heat on the remaining establishment legislators and bring about a change in direction, a restoration of America.
If we fail to keep the heat on, if we as a people once again rest on our laurels and become complacent in accepting the status quo, we will be like the old man in the flood and we will drown in our lack of action.
So do you think Aslan is on the move?
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