Prophecy

Following my recent post about Edgar Cayce I got to thinking about the Old Testament prophets. Admittedly they are not figures that spring to mind for most of us unless we happen to learn about one or another in a homily or bible lesson. We can read what they pronounced, fiery injunctions, loud lamentations and mysterious visions of a future that came to be or has yet to unravel. But I wondered at what it must have been like for these men and women in their day, before their prophecies unfolded. Were they regarded as quacks, addled minds filed with prattle about imminent happenings, or perhaps more gently dismissed?

Surely, when men more closely felt the presence of God or at least his invisible hand moving in their lives, prophets must have been regarded differently than they are today, but even then their words must have been cause for skepticism by many until their portents became manifest. We have heard the caution that no man is a prophet in his own home, a simplification of the words spoken by Jesus and reported by Mark. "There is no Prophet without honour except in his own country, and among his own relatives, and in his own home." The truth of this should be clear to us at this very moment in time as we witness a darkness that has overtaken our own home.

Did prophets walk among us and foresee what now occurs? Did we fail to heed those visions as our forefathers did thousands of years ago? Prophecy it seems is a slippery slope. Clearly we have been warned time and again what happens when we give away our precious and hard won freedoms, when we place trust in those who are unfit to lead believing they will punish those we fear and reward us, the faithful, with riches and peace. Unless we are willingly ignorant we know their promises are empty, cannot be fulfilled except by magical thinking. We know and yet we look away from that reality, and embrace a fantasy even as we watch in dismay at events and outcomes that would have had us wringing our hands a short while ago.

And today's prophets, what of them? They are as their ancient predecessors must have been, spurned, ridiculed and worse--labelled as bearers of false narrative, accused of an agenda for daring to ask questions, for pulling back the curtain to reveal the crimes unfolding daily. But before you dismiss this post as yet another hand wringing jeremiad, there is a small ray of hope we should note. Where once the ranks of prophets were few and chosen, thousands take their place. Ordinary people, not anointed as either prophet or reporter, but who nevertheless bear witness. They attend and document, observe and report what is now occurring so that those with eyes who will see can know the truth, even as it is suppressed and distorted by the perpetrators of division.

In Jesus' day all men might be like Thomas, doubting third hand reports, insisting on proof that what was reported was indeed real. News travelled more slowly and bore the fingerprints of each hand that conveyed it. Today it is before our eyes in mere minutes and not by the hands of one or two but many. We can choose to believe our eyes and ears or dismiss what we must know to be true. We can offer justifications reciting the lies force fed us about sinister strangers who walk among us and must be purged by force or we can recognize them as men, women and children, neighbors who came here seeking shelter.

When this time has passed, and the veil of lies and distortions is lifted, will we revere the many prophets of our day who put themselves at risk to show us what we may not wish to acknowledge? If history offers a lesson, many will deny complicity, more still plead ignorance. Those who will not see, who will deny any proof whether out of fear, ignorance, or misguided allegiance will in time pass away, but others like them will arise. In Germany today, monuments to the atrocity of war stand to remind generations to come of the awful price we pay when we lose sight of our humanity. They document the suffering of the German people but side by side display the crimes they committed against others that none should be permitted to grieve only for their own.

Our crimes, those of today and those perpetuated on others, most of all those who were here before we set foot on this land and those we brought to our country by force bound in chains, those crimes are being systematically erased from public sight. Museum exhibits vanish, school books are rewritten, curriculum changed to suit a new narrative about the past and erase the truth. It must not be allowed to pass. It is not just that we are repeating our history, but doing so willingly. This is no longer about politics if ever it was, it is about the soul of our nation, what we stand for or say we do. Are we doomed to yet another cycle of repression and hatred, or do we have the courage to stand and say what must be said? We may not agree on much but inhumanity by any name is the darkest crime of all and anyone, of any faith or philosophy must stand against it or be faithless. Who will history say we were?