The twilight of the past age of America is indeed at the hour of its last gleaming. But let us remember two lessons from our national anthem and two from the song that has inspired my annual Independence Day reflections on hopeful realism here at HT.

From the national anthem:

• At the twilight’s last gleaming, we proudly hail our country.
• That which we proudly hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming may be seen again at the early light of the following dawn – even if only by the light of explosions from rockets and bombs.

The point of our national anthem is not that we do not pass through the dark night of terror and bombs. The point is that we can and may survive.

Right after 9/11, Dan Rather broke down on the Letterman show when he reflected that we could no longer say, with one of the later stanzas of the national anthem, “thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears.” But I think we can say it. The point was not that there were no tears; who could ever have been so foolish? The point was that the tears did not dim the cities – and so they do not.

The cities can be dimmed, however, by the disgraceful behavior of their citizens, including the citizens’ toleration of disgraceful behavior by their leaders. And so they now are, on both sides of the aisle.

Which brings us to Ray Charles, who sings that America is beautiful and asks that God shed his grace upon her – an observation still true and a prayer still well worth praying.

All the way back in July of last year – can we even remember a time so long ago? – when the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump was still unimaginable to almost all of us, I predicted “a dark five years followed by a new dawn.”

A new dawn from where? As I wrote when my daughter was in surgery, the signs of decline are always right where you look for them, but the signs of renewal never are.

Want a sign of hope? This past Sunday, the following sermon was preached (by video) in my church.

That’s a shortened version. Long version’s available on YouTube.

What’s striking is not only that there’s this much wisdom about the American political order in the American church, but that a pastor who reaches millions and is notorious for his sensitivity to cultural currents is willing to preach it in worship. If Andy Stanley is willing to preach this now, how many will preach something like it next year, when the need will be even more keenly felt?

This is, as I put it in my article a year go predicting five years’ darkness and then the dawn, “neither Falwell nor Benedict, but a new creation.”

Want another sign of hope? The New Disney Animation continues to turn American culture inside out. As I remarked at some length last year, the main reason our political institutions fail us is because other institutions that have greater cultural power have gone bad. But revolutionary forces are gathering strength in those non-political institutions.

We are, indeed, entering in upon what will be years of very dark darkness. In the coming weeks I hope to find the spare time to return to the ins and outs of American politics, including the dismal foolishness that has been revealed lately in social conservative leaders (ecclesiastical and otherwise).

But the signs of a felt need for something greater, of a renewal, are all there. Success is not guaranteed if we try, but failure is guaranteed if we don’t.

And this is not our first national night – not by a long shot.

I began this series in 2012 when my daughter, then six, encountered her first fireworks and was overjoyed – but I spent the time wondering if there was an America left worth saving for her. In the years since, as I have acknowledged worse and worse signs of decline, I have emphasized hope more and more.

This year, we didn’t get to see fireworks, except from a distance on our balcony. Life intervened, as it has a way of doing. But we did have a wonderful time, going back to where we used to live to see the parade there, and going to the carnival that was in town where we now live. And we got to talk together, as we couldn’t when she was six, about the meaning of America. I even got to tell her that our church was preaching it from the pulpit, which reinforces that it isn’t just her parents saying these things.

As I said last year: Trowel’s waiting. Get to work or get out of the way.

First, a pro-life strategy of compromise—rather than principle—has failed to convince the public or the courts. This offers the opportunity to refocus our efforts on the ultimate goal of the pro-life movement. Second, Republican judicial nominations have failed to overturn unconstitutional pro-abortion precedents and have even contributed to them. This offers the opportunity to eschew blind partisanship and to create constructive social tension that prompts political change. And third, our constitutional system has failed to constrain the judiciary. This offers the opportunity for lesser magistrates to resist unjust edicts.

(source: SCOTUS and Abortion: Three Failures and Opportunities)

Now, if you expect that I’m cheered to see that stated so clearly, you are quite right.  Obviously, I think this effort is all to the good (especially that last one, which needs a lot more clear and cogent expression, these days).

I want to add one qualification, though.  I think it is important that we not treat “didn’t work” as “couldn’t have worked” or “might not ever work.”  I mean simply that, while we must necessarily make judgments based on our best possible understanding of our situation, we should not discourage others or prevent ourselves from simultaneously attempting other things.

Honesty requires us to simply admit that we regard some principles–partisan consistency, usual procedure, typical courtesy, even legal niceties and fair play–as useful and generally good, but dispensable when matters of the first importance such as the slaughter of the unborn are clearly not being solved in those manners.  But honesty does not require us to say that such things are bad ideas.  They are “good if you can get it,” and not treating the slaughter of the innocent as a human right is “if you don’t have this, you can’t have anything else.”

It really is that simple.  We always plan the next battle, and we never agree that any of the transient alliances we may make along the way have any power to bind us where matters of true importance are at play.  We recognize that gamesmanship and euphemism have their place, but we also recognize that when the innocent are being killed for profit with the protection and approbation of what we euphemistically call “the law,” the appropriate rhetoric is not that of the cricket pitch but that of the battlefield.

It cannot be otherwise.

And while we plan and think that way, we also back whatever improves the situation–tentatively, and without ever offering the slightest pretense that we intend to stop there.  We insist that any honest person can “at least” support whatever is already in play, because that is reality.  Any honest person can, and should.  And we will insist that again, the next time, too.

So my qualification is only this:  let us no more make a false principle of adherence to the top-line principle “alone” than of adherence to the lesser and more transient principles, but let us use all and every means without dissimulation or hesitation.

To you, Lord, I lift up my soul.
My God, I trust you, I shall not be ashamed.
Do not let my enemies triumph.
No-one who trusts you should lose by it.
Let the losers be the faithless traitors
who break their word pointlessly.

Lord, show me your ways
and teach me your paths.
Guide me in your truth and teach me,
since you are the God of my salvation
and I hope in you all the day long.

(source: Universalis: Sext)

My most recent poetry collection is now available, and I believe it is the best yet.

Poems, mostly sonnets, written since the completion of my last collection. In these works, concrete imagery and metaphysical reflection serve as lenses to survey a number of durable realities. The progression from “Thinging” to “Thinking,” as well as the philosophical nature of many of these poems, derives from the major intellectual adjustments that have resulted from my embrace of the Catholic faith and the metaphysical realism, best worked out by St. Thomas Aquinas, that follows naturally from that understanding. A brief annotated selection of 1995 poems provides some depth of field for the intellectual and poetic landscape here sketched.

(source: The Clay Pot by Peter G. Epps (Paperback) – Lulu)

If you know someone who would be willing to review it, I’d be happy to arrange to send a copy. And do please consider adding it to your collection!

I’d prefer you ordered from my printer directly (or help me get this shelf space in your local bookstore), but all my work is available through amazon.com/author/pgepps as well.

Amazing but true – delegates to the GOP convention are not bound by either law or tradition to cast their votes for any particular candidates, or at all, on any ballot. No nefarious back-room “changes to the rules” are needed; they are free, already, now, to vote their consciences. David French has chapter and verse.

The GOP has a last chance to do the right thing. I have seen many invocations of “party loyalty” in the last month, but there are no grounds for party loyalty if we believe that a party is literally nothing but whatever a plurality of the voters (many of them not party members) happen to demand it be at any given moment. What does “party loyalty” even mean if the “party” has no objective existence, and is no more than whatever you want it to be?

It’s bad enough that we allow now people who are very sick, unhappy and out of control to “identify” as something other than what they are. But at least they are willing to identify as something. How ridiculous would it be if Bruce Jenner simultaneously demanded that we acknowledge him to be a woman and call him Caitlyn, and that he continue to be allowed to compete in men’s swimming, out of some kind of groundless “athletic loyalty”?

You cannot have loyalty to an institution unless that institution exists for something. Does the GOP exist for anything? The outcome of the convention will give us our answer – either way.