How to Live in Interesting Times

I don’t think many people will deny that we live in dark and dangerous times.

Between political unrest, scandals in the Church, moral decay, and a dozen other factors, there’s a growing sense that the world is racing along a very treacherous path. We’re liable to disagree about the specifics of what’s going wrong, still more on why it is so and what to do about it, but most of us will agree that things are not going well, and they are likely to get worse before they get better.

In short we live in what might be termed ‘interesting times.’ I am sure our distant descendants will enjoy reading about our world and shaking their heads at our folly, but in the meantime we find ourselves faced with the question of how we are to live in such an age. More specifically, what does the fact of living in ‘interesting times’ mean for those of us looking to find a spouse and start a family?

The first thing we ought to get clear right from the start is this: our circumstances are nothing new.

Certainly the specifics are original to our times (which is true of every time), but there have been many, many troubled or even disastrous ages before, and if there is one thing that may be learned from them, it is that life goes on.

The Greeks continued to compose poetry and discuss philosophy during the Peloponnesian Wars. St. Augustine continued to preach and write even as the Roman Empire collapsed about him. J.R.R. Tolkien married his wife during the opening years of the First World War (just before he himself was shipped to the Somme) and mostly composed his masterwork, The Lord of the Rings, amid the uncertainty and horrors during and leading up to the Second.

Indeed, that work is largely the picture of ordinary people living in ‘interesting times,’ and it offers some sound advice on the point:

“How shall a man judge what to do in such times?” Eomer asks, bewildered by the wonders and terrors springing up around him.

“As he ever has judged,” Aragorn answers. “Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear…It is a man’s part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.”

Essentially, the first thing to recall in evil times is that they do not fundamentally change our position. Life goes on, and with it our duties to God and to each other.

On that subject, it may help to recall that people have survived such times before now.

It’s meaningless to compare and say one disaster was worse than another (was the Fall of Rome worse than the Black Death?). The important point is that we are still here, which means that, however bad things were, people got through it one way or another. And they got through it by more or less carrying on as best they could: marrying and giving in marriage, working away at their own appointed tasks, judging of right and wrong, and keeping the Faith.

There is another thing to keep in mind: God does nothing by accident. If He has called us into being during such times, He obviously considers that we can take it and that we are, one way or another, fitted for them. “God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength.” That doesn’t necessarily mean we will avert the threatening disaster, but it does mean that we can face it one way or another.

The Lord of the Rings again gives insight to our position:

“I wish it needn’t have happened in my time,” Frodo says upon learning how dire their situation truly is.

“So do I!” Gandalf answers. “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

So, what are we to do with the time we are given?

The Austrian Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl was imprisoned for years in the Auschwitz death camp. During that time he was able to observe how people were able to survive under the worst possible conditions. He concluded, in his seminal work Man’s Search for Meaning, that it ultimately came down to having a sense of purpose:

“He who discovers a ‘why’ for his existence can endure almost any ‘how’.”

Allow me to propose a ‘why’ for you. If, as it seems the sky grows darker yet and the sea rises higher, take motivation from this very fact. While you are seeking and courting your bride, and while you are bearing and raising your children, consider that you are, in your own little corner, keeping the darkness at bay. By enduring the times and keeping the faith, you help ensure that, however long the dark tunnel may last, there will be something better at the other end.

For here is the final point: whatever we have to face in the years ahead, remember that to this too God will bring an end.

Many great and good things may pass away, and it is our task to try to save what may be saved, but sooner or later, the darkness will pass and better times will come again. To paraphrase The Lord of the Rings once more, in the end this shadow is only a small and passing thing. There is light and high beauty forever beyond its reach.

The British have a proverb: “Trust in God and keep your powder dry.” In other words, look after your own, keep the faith, manage your life as well as you can, and wait on the Lord to bring relief. If we do this, we need not fear to live in ‘interesting times.’