Deadly Embrace

There is a  baffling and mystifying phenomenon now afoot in our world.

By which I mean that in the face of overwhelming, incontrovertible evidence in favour of the truth, men, women and children are everywhere choosing a lie - or a collection of lies.

There is also a simple rule you may remember for these times. The rule is this: the more “educated,” the more “sophisticated,” the more “well dressed,” the more “posh” they are, the more likely the individual or family in question, is likely to see straight through the truth - and embrace the lie.

If they were merely flirting with the lie or even stealing a furtive kiss from it before being flung back into reality, the situation would perhaps not be so serious. But the delusion is indeed a tight embrace that will not let go.

As they who are deluded dance with the lie in its death-embrace, the truth does not give up. With a tap on the shoulder, with a fireworks show of new evidence or even with the noise of thunder nearby, the truth will try and wrench them apart from the lie. But only for a time. After a variable period has elapsed (this depends on the tightness of the embrace), the deluded person does indeed become one flesh with the lie and they cannot be separated - except by a miracle.

Millions of people for example, have embraced the lie that the covid injection is “safe and effective.” When they themselves got sick for the third time with the virus (after the 4th booster), they refused to countenance the truth. When their neighbour’s young son gets myocarditis, truth taps them on their shoulders again and pleads admittance. When they are struck with Bell’s palsy themselves after the 5th booster, truth puts on a sparkling show of fireworks. And if a spouse dies of a stroke soon after yet another booster - the loud, deep rumble of truth’s thunder is all around them. At this stage, if the deluded person then tweets “I would do it all over again,” they are beyond human help and the midsummer madness of marrying the lie has become a long-lasting, even permanent descent into insanity.

A certain consistency then sets in, because the lie (or collection of lies) has a powerful sponsor and prince. The Bible calls the devil “the father of lies” and even for those of us who did not at first believe that we are in a spiritual battle, the pathological resistance to the truth of the deluded should convince us that this is more than a psychological phenomenon, more than the “mass formation” hypothesis that has become so popular in the last few years.

When I learned in university and medical school that every boy has an XY chromosome pair in every cell and that every girl has an XX chromosome pair in every cell, I know that not a single one of my classmates believed that by closing one’s eyes and believing that a boy is a girl (or vice versa), the chromosomes would magically change places! And yet here we are - our elementary and high schools, our universities and alas our medical schools too, are teaching exactly the latter; and the deadly dance with delusion has begun in earnest in all our places of “learning” (remember my rule for these times).

Throughout our history, there are many who have been unable to turn around their lives and abandon the path of destruction they have set themselves upon.  A very ill, chronic alcoholic for example may tragically persist in his addiction although it is destroying his liver, his brain and his life. But he will almost certainly not claim that alcohol is actually doing him a world of good! But nowadays, not only do the gravely damaged and deluded pillory the truth, they claim that the lie is in fact very good for them!

In the New Testament, Jesus describes the deluded of His time and the similarly deluded of every age:

“they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.

And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:

For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.”

And therein lies hope for us all - and the possibility of release from the dungeon chains of delusion.

In the parable of the prodigal son, Jesus raises the glorious possibility of redemption, when he proclaims that the prodigal “came to his senses” - and soon after, started the journey back home to his Father’s house.

The millions of our deluded countrymen, friends and family may also “come to their senses” - and by a miracle, return to the embrace of Him who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.