Reflections Along the Jesus Way
August 6, 2023 – Quote for the Day:
“During a recent visit to a local university campus, I happened to pick up the Borzoi College Reader published in 1966. I discovered the volume was a collection of short essays and stories, by distinguished and recognized authors, separated into sections designed to acquaint college students with important issues of their world, as well as introduce them to superb examples of writing and thinking.
One of the essays was titled ‘The Morning They Did It’ by E.B. White – first published in The New Yorker in 1950. White was a prolific writer who contributed a regular column for Harpers from 1938-1945, as well as authoring children’s books, humor and poetry and The Elements of Style which over the years has become somewhat of a ‘Bible’ for writers and editors.
‘The Morning They Did It’ is a short piece of futuristic fiction in which E.B. White imagines the day the world would eventually end. As White concludes his prophetic piece of science-fiction he pauses to explain the state of that world – the conditions that had made the world ripe for the apocalyptic circumstances causing humans to extinguish all life on the planet. I was amazed at the remarkable foresight of White, and how clear his prophetic sci-fi vision has turned out to be, in our world some 65 years later [editor’s note – many years beyond that!]. He foresaw a world that was addicted to lust and ‘allergic’ to God. Here’s an excerpt from the next-to-last paragraph of ‘The Morning They Did It’ by E.B. White:
Those last days! There were so many religions in conflict, each ready to save the world with its own dogma, each perfectly intolerant of the other. Each day seemed a mere skirmish in the long holy war. It was a time of debauch and conversion … Television was the universal peepshow – in homes, schools, churches, bars, stores, everywhere.
Children early formed the habit of gaining all their images … second hand, by looking at a screen; they grew up believing that anything perceived directly was vaguely fraudulent. Only what had been touched by electronics was valid and real… There was never really a moment when a child, or even a man, felt free to look away from the television screen – for fear he might miss the one clue that would explain everything.
What a remarkable picture of our world today – where young people who are glued to their electronic devices are actively recruited by terrorists who disguise their hatred in the name of religion! Hearts and minds are twisted and subverted so that those who were once free are now overwhelmed by their electronic captors.”
Originally published in:
Letters to My Friends
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