survivalism

Swedish Forethought

Swedish Forethought on September 29, 2018

“If crisis or war comes” is the title of a brochure of 19 pages issued to all Swedish households in May of this year by the State of Sweden, “to help us become better prepared for anything from serious accidents, extreme weather and IT (Information Technology) attacks, to military conflicts . . . . Many people may feel anxiety when faced with an uncertain world . . .” One useful page of the brochure lists in common sense fashion the four most important natural needs of any household in a national emergency: water, food, warmth and information. See on the Internet dinsäkerhet.se

The State of Sweden is obviously not alone in observing a high state of tension in the world around us. Every State is formed of nothing but human beings, every one of whom comes from God and has been given life in order to make the right use of it so as to be able to go to God at death. Yet the mass of mankind today lives in a state of indifference towards God, or in positive revolt against Him. Many men may not be atheists, they may still believe that He exists, but they hardly take Him seriously, because science and technology seem to have taken His place, and it is henceforth modern politics and economics that guarantee for us the good life. Old age is conveniently moved off into an old people’s home, and death into a hospital. Yet God exists of course as much as ever, He cares if anything more than ever, to see more souls than ever throwing themselves by sin into Hell, and here is why our world is in such a state of unprecedented tension: it is wilfully living at cross-purposes with its Maker. Some huge crisis must come.

Since the problem is radically religious, then it should go without saying that the best solution is also religious. That household is taking out the very best insurance policy to protect itself where the Rosary is regularly prayed by all the family together. How the Devil must hate the Rosary! But in the meantime Sweden’s practical suggestions are a good start for any household that has not yet been thinking of any natural measures to prepare for trouble. Here are a few of them:—

WATER – Clean drinking water is vital. Allow for at least three litres per adult per day. Foresee a means of boiling it if necessary. Have bottles, buckets with lids, plastic bottles in which to freeze water, and jerry cans, ideally with a tap, to collect water in.

FOOD – Have extra food at home that provides sufficient calories. Use non-perishable food that can be prepared quickly, requires little water or can be eaten without preparation: for instance, bread with a long shelf-life, spreads in tubes, milk powder, cooking-oil, pasta, lentils, tins of sardines, ravioli, boiled meat, soup, honey, nuts, seeds (those are only a few of the brochure’s suggestions).

WARMTH – In a house grown cold without electricity, gather in one room, hang blankets over the windows, cover the floor with rugs and build a den under a table to keep warm. Extinguish all candles and oil-burners before going to sleep. Air the room regularly to let in oxygen. Have woollen clothing, sleeping mats and sleeping bags, fire-lighters, alternative heat sources, etc.

COMMUNICATIONS – In a crisis there will be a need to be able to receive national news, to contact friends and relatives, to contact the emergency services. Therefore have a radio powered by batteries or solar cells or winding: a car radio and mobile phone charger that works in a car, extra batteries, etc.

And the brochure mentions a few miscellaneous extras like cash on hand, a medicine cabinet, fuel in the tank. Many of these things cost relatively little now, but let a dangerous crisis loom, and they risk suddenly becoming much more scarce and expensive, if they can be had at all. “Trust in God,” says the proverb, “but keep rowing to shore.”

Kyrie eleison.

Elmer Gantry

Elmer Gantry on October 13, 2012

On the in-seat entertainment system of a long-distance flight I recently found, listed as a “classic,” a film I could remember from having watched it some 50 years ago – the film version made in 1960 of Sinclair Lewis’ novel, Elmer Gantry. I remembered the film because two remarks from the dialogue have stayed with me ever since. One is of an old man comparing religious conversion to getting drunk. The other is of a young woman begging to be lied to. I watched the film again . . .

Elmer Gantry is an American con-man of the 1920’s who falls for a revivalist woman preacher, Sister Falconer, while she is conducting a cross-country crusade for conversions in a big travelling tent. Lacking any real religion, the film is somewhat confused, but it does portray both the genuine need that souls have of some religion, and the falsehood of the fundamentalist Protestant “religion.” The true need and the false satisfaction are highlighted together when Elmer puts questions to an old man cleaning up in the tent: “Mister,” he replies, leaning on his broom, “I’ve been converted five times. Billy Sunday, Reverend Biederwolf, Gypsy Smith and twice by Sister Falconer. I get terrible drunk, and then I get good and saved. Both of them done me a powerful lot of good – gettin’ drunk and gettin’ saved.”

Of course the remark has its comic side, but it is tragic when one thinks of all the souls for whom it has become a kind of common sense to put religious conversion on a level with drink. That is survivalism replacing revivalism, well on the way to religion being ridiculed altogether. How many souls there must be for whom the Holy Name of “Jesus” has been virtually burnt out by its association with the emotionalism of fundamentalist preachers! Read “Wise Blood” and other stories by Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964), a Catholic writer who shocks but is not confused, and who portrays just how far man’s religious instinct can be bent out of shape by the Protestantism of America’s Deep South. God can make roses grow out of a sewer, but heresy does terrible damage!

The second remark that I remembered from the film arises in a private context, but its potential application is far wider. While pursuing Sister Falconer, Elmer runs by chance into a woman that he mistreated and abandoned years earlier. When this woman learns of his affair with Sister, she wants her revenge, but even whilst laying a honey-trap for Elmer to discredit him utterly in the media, she cannot help herself wanting him to tell her that he loves her. She says: “Tell me a good, strong lie I can believe, but hold me tight.” Loving him still as she does, all she wants is to be deceived.

Such is the world around us. All it asks is to be deceived. That is why we are living in a world of Satan’s lies. We do not want God. Now, life without him cannot work – see Ps. 126, v.1, and just look around you – but we desperately want to believe that life works best of all without him. In effect we say to our leaders, “We elected you to tell us good, strong lies, and to hold us tight in our godlessness. Please do a 9/11, a 7/7 (U.K.’s 9/11), or anything you like, just so long as we can go on believing in you as a substitute for God to look after us. The bigger the lie, the more we will believe it, but you must hold us tight. Tighten up our police states as much as you like, but you must keep out God.”

Is it any wonder we have the satanic world we have?

Kyrie eleison.