Fiery, but Mostly Peaceful Protest: The Modern-Day Maxim

The prophet Jeremiah warned Jerusalem of judgment. Some attempted to offer temporary relief from judgment by dressing the wounds of the people half-heartedly. They constructed their own stage and offered God a production of B-rated actors and said, “You see, look how Oscar worthy we are!” And God, who happened to write the whole script for the movie entitled, “History of Civilization: A Memoir” wasn’t impressed with their attempts.

In their minds, they couldn’t take judgment seriously and acted as protagonists of their fate. Again, Yahweh was not very impressed…at all! They even went so far as to make a declaration that there was peace all around, but there was no peace (Jer. 6:14). Their self-deception was not timid; in fact, the prophet said they didn’t even know how to blush (Jer. 6:15).

What does it take a for a society to abandon every sense of shame? What does it take a culture to act as if they can only place temporary bandages when if the infection doesn’t desist, the leg will be amputated? What makes an ideology believe there is peace when really what they want is distance from God and ethical chaos to reign supreme?

I have been pondering this question recently and a maxim descended to me from heaven, as if in a dream–a really bad dream. I exaggerate; in actuality, it showed up in a CNN by-line covering the protests of some ignorant anarchists. It was right there! It said: “Fiery but mostly peaceful protest!” It was that eureka moment novelists have at three in the morning, except mine didn’t spring out of anything reliable, it was just CNN. I realized at that moment that even the most obtuse can forget their real narrative and enter that strange world of reality.

It was almost a repeat of Jeremiah’s day when they said, “Peace, peace, but there is no peace!” In any real world scenario the concept of fire and peace does not harmonize unless you see it as refining something. In this case, these social scoundrels were burning their own neighborhoods and CNN couldn’t help but live in this contradictory worldview. You can’t hide from reality, because reality bites you back and you end up feeling this burning sensation.

Any human being in their most unproductive day understands that you don’t burn your house to protest high taxes. But sanity, logic and those classical virtues are so far for these humans that they believe they have a right to live in a fantasy world while protesting what they believe to be objective injustices in society. I honestly have no way of reading into their next maxim. From the direction they’re heading, they might even go so far as to claim that a man can be a woman. But I don’t want to be too much of a pessimist!