Peggy Noonan is one of America's best writers. Her insights and conclusions are keen and well written. Peggy can say a lot in just a few sentences.
Ms. Noonan writes regularly for the Wall Street Journal and I get an electronic sample six days a week. http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110010480 My cup runs over with great writing that causes me to sin regularly because I covet her ability to communicate.
In a recent article about the report written by New York's Police Department about the reasons and processes of Jihadism in America Peggy is at her best at both summarizing the NYPD's analysis and calling the serious minded citizens in the USA to do something about it. Here is her most powerful statement. (See http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/pdf/dcpi/NYPD_Report-Radicalization_in_the_West.pdf )
So that's the latest report on young men and how they become drawn to terrorism. It's also the latest on what terror networks are up to, and how they're planning to move. The only thing I'd add is that all modern young people come from two environments. The first is the immediate family, which is human and therefore by definition imperfect, sometimes to a serious and destructive degree. The other is the broader culture in which we all live, and which includes everything from schools to the neighborhood to the media. It's not a new thing to say but it's still true that the latter, which is more powerful than ever, is wholly devoted to the material. People are money winners or luxury item enjoyers. They just want stuff. It is soulless.
Because I am bent upon Unleashing Seasoned Believers to love and enjoy God her comment has struck me deeply. Seasoned Believers are Americans with souls and soul. Her assessment of the problem and its implied answer are right up our alley. The an answer is something that we Seasoned Saints have in our hearts and histories.
According to Dr. Robert Fogel, the Nobel Prize winning economist who writes and teaches about the Revivals and Awakenings of American history and how they impact economics, the current Fourth Great Awakening that began in the Sixties and has matured into an Awakening today, is one that is destined to touch men and women spiritually not just materially.
Read Ms. Noonan's last sentences again. Memorize them. Think about them. Americans have become soul-less. Any nation without a soul is doomed to the ash heap of history. Has God chosen the Seasoned Saints to redeem this nation from the disaster of sex, materialism and Jihad?
What can save us? Certainly not the stock market or more sex or designer drugs. It has been but a few short years since two famous women died. Princess Diana and Mother Teresa both met their Maker in the same week but the American media is obsessed with just one of these women. One of them is going through the laborious process of seeing if she can be considered a saint by the Roman Catholic Church while the other has already achieved "sainthood" in the eyes of the least discerning people on earth; the media.
The Princess was rich, beautiful, sexually promiscuous and hedonistic as well as narcissistic.
She had everything modern America loves so they automatically sanctified her along with Brittany and Paris.
Mother Teresa was poor, plain, pious and powerfully spiritual so she was kept at a distance by the Hollywood crowd. Her soul was large and welcoming. We need more people like her.
Seasoned Believers can provide the heart and soul to revive the nation's soul.
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