The United States, Rome, Caesar, Trump, and How to Live in All of It.

      I haven't posted here for a little while lately. I’ve spent a lot of emotional turmoil lately over what’s been rapidly happening to the United States. My family’s roots go deep here, all the way back to the original colonies through a couple of lines, and back farther than that through another. As I’ve said on more than one occasion, I’m about as “ethnically American” as it gets. There is no other place my family has called home since at least the Boston Bay Colony. This is and has been my ancestral homeland for close to four hundred years, and what happens to it affects me deeply. Lately, I can’t turn on a news broadcast or look at my news feed online without my heart sinking and at times breaking for what is happening to this nation that my ancestors helped build, fought for, bled for, and died for. I had ancestors in the American Revolution, both sides of the Civil War, a grand uncle who died as a soldier in WWI, a grandfather who died testing military aircraft at the end of WWII, a step-grandfather who was in the merchant marines, a father who spent twenty years in the U.S. Army retiring as a CWO3, and now a son, of whom I am immensely proud, serving in the U.S. Navy. I grew up until the age of six on or near military bases, and was taught to love flag, constitution, and country from the time I could walk. It was only asthma that kept me out of the service, twice. I was taught to respect the military as well as police officers (both parents went through police academy), to be proud of my heritage and our country’s history. And my heart is breaking at the utter betrayal of that heritage and history, and I can do nothing about it.
     There can be no doubt, at least in my mind, that the United States that we knew, that I was taught to know, is over. It has been and is being systematically dismantled by selfish and self-serving men and women, and possibly in service to a hostile foreign power. Those now sitting in the halls of power care nothing for any of this except for what benefits them or appears to benefit them. They care only for what is politically expedient at the moment. The situation in the U.S. Capital resembles the machinations of the senators and politicians of another, more ancient civilization and empire: Rome.
      One thing which keeps coming to my mind about ancient Rome is that, even after it transitioned from a nominally democratic republic to a dictatorship ruled by emperors, life went on. Even after Julius Caesar’s ambitious betrayal of those republican ideals and Roman law as he took the title of dictator for life, life for the people went on largely as it had. From Julius Caesar to Caesar Augustus, and from Augustus to Tiberius to Claudius to Nero, life went on. Corruption in the government was rampant even as the more noble and honorable of Rome’s leaders tried to hold everything together, sometimes succeeding for a while, and sometimes failing spectacularly. There were wealthy people, there were poor people. There were slaves, and there were slave owners. Industries and businesses continued to operate or not. People continued to travel, or not. Life went on and people did the best they could with what life had thrown at them. Sometimes there was justice to be found in the courts, sometimes there wasn’t. Philosophers and preachers taught the people openly regardless, and frequently preached against that very corruption, accepting the consequences when they ran afoul of powerful people. Epictetus has a good deal to say about this very subject as he and the other Stoic philosophers were exiled from Rome at one point because their teachings contradicted the actions and immorality of the emperor at the time.
      Among the Christians, there were no revolutionaries, and certainly no violent revolutionaries. Not once in the writings of the New Testament will you find anyone actually critical of the Roman authorities, especially Jesus Himself. The Judean authorities, yes. The Roman authorities, no. Paul is clear that respect, honor, and taxes were all to be paid to whomever they were due, and in Acts we see him even being friends with high ranking Roman officials in Ephesus. Decades later, Polycarp, when the Roman authorities came to arrest him, ordered his own people to set out a table with as much food and drink as those officers wanted. What he could not do was declare that “Caesar is Lord,” and accepting the consequences of his refusal, he went to his execution willingly. And you find this same story again and again for the first couple hundred years after Christ in their own writings. Lawful, gentle, and humble obedience to the authorities up until they were asked to declare that “Caesar is Lord.” Yet once they were condemned to be executed for their refusal, they went to it willingly, being burnt at the stake, torn apart by wild beasts in the arenas, crucified, and beheaded. Given the option between betraying their discipleship of Christ and declaring their allegiance to the cult of Caesar or dying horrifically, they joyfully jumped in front of the lions, sung hymns from burning stakes, and humbly accepted crucifixion or beheading. Not once did they attempt to overthrow or change the government. Not once did they rebel except in their refusal to participate in the imperial cult.
     How are we to live in these times? The same way that these early Christian leaders and even Stoic philosophers lived during theirs. With gentle, lawful, and humble obedience to the authorities until they couldn’t. And when they couldn’t, they accepted the consequences. But their acceptance of those consequences, far from wiping them out, rooted them so deep that they grew in number and outlasted those who sought to stamp them out for their own selfish gains or ideologies.
     Recently, I wrote something on Facebook that seems appropriate to include here:
     “Hatred cannot be defeated by hatred. Violence only begets more violence. He who lives by the sword will also die by it. This last one is what every soldier or officer who carries a weapon must implicitly acknowledge at least the possibility of. Mountains of hard stone may last for eons, yet water, one of the softest of materials, is capable of carving channels through them.
     I've been seeing on the news and hearing about the vandalism of Teslas as a way to protest against Elon Musk's rather shady government position, and indirectly Trump himself. Who does it help? As many have pointed out, it does not hurt either Musk or Trump, but rather the owners of the Teslas and dealerships, who had nothing to do with Musk or Trump, who must now suffer the costs of damaged property. Even if they are insured, the insurance company has to pay for it, and will likely raise rates on Tesla owners for just this reason regardless of their political beliefs.
     People feel threatened right now by what's happening. That feeling is justified, but allowing our fear or anger to dictate how we respond only throws everything further into chaos and farther from where we were and where we want to be. In ancient Judea, two thousand years ago, people were angry at the Roman occupation too. They rebelled again and again, lashed out at the soldiers that were stationed there, murdering some. The Romans responded with brutal force again and again. Ultimately, the kingdom wasn't restored as the rebels hoped, but the temple was razed to the ground, and the Romans hunted down every last rebel, ending them at Masada.
     Had they done what Jesus taught, the Roman legion would have left of its own accord because there would have been no need of them to stay. Had they turned the other cheek, gone the extra mile, loved their enemies, and forgiven--why would the Romans have needed to keep their forces there when they were needed elsewhere? The temple would likely still be standing today if they had just done what He told them to do. There would have been no Titus and his legions, there would have been no Roman holocaust, there would have been no Masada.
     Do you want to resist evil? Do you want to see it destroyed? Then love. Love those who hate you. Do good to those who abuse and mistreat you. Will people get hurt? Yes. But people will get hurt if you use violence and hatred as well. If you use the tools of your enemy, you become the thing you're fighting against. If you can, help others, if you cannot help them, at the very least, do no harm.
     Consider these people as beloved family members who are severely mentally ill. How would you treat them? Would you want them harmed or healed? Would you want them destroyed, or in their right minds? The only way to accomplish that is through love and compassion.”
     I also wrote this:
     “We are each of us trying to do the "right thing" and follow "the good." The problem is we're all coming at it with different sets of information and the beliefs built on that information. We all want to do and be the right thing, but like Maximus in the recent Fallout series said, nobody can agree on how to go about it. The only way we all rise above this and heal from it is if we love and place love and compassion for one another as a higher priority than being "right." The only true "right" and "wrong" things are those born from either love or fear, and continuing to fear what we do not agree with or do not understand, and to act on that fear, will only drive us further into darkness, pain, and suffering. We must see each other, not as threats, but as ourselves and see ourselves in each other.”
     As history shows, those who did do what Jesus taught eventually outlasted those who oppressed and persecuted them. Those who loved their enemies, forgave, practiced non-judgment, and lived their lives in love apart from fear eventually not only survived, but technically conquered even the Roman empire by the fourth century.
     St. Paul also wrote, “As much as possible, live in peace with all people.” A couple of his friends in Ephesus were high ranking Roman authorities, Asiarchs, who were themselves in charge of the imperial cult. They were pagans and not Christians, and yet they were friends of St. Paul. Paul didn’t judge them for who they were or what they believed. He just loved them. The same was true of the Roman Centurion whose kid Jesus healed, the slave whose ear was cut off whom Jesus healed, and others.
     Yes, the United States we knew is gone, just like the old Roman Republic was gone. From what I can see, it’s not coming back. It’s a call, not to arms, but to remember that this world isn’t our home. Our true citizenship isn’t with any country in this life, our genuine ancestry originates in eternity. These bodies and identities are avatars in a much larger MMORPG. Our real home, the genuine Reality from which we came and will return to, is unaffected by anything which happens here. Both Jesus and the Stoic philosophers taught not to fear those who can kill the body. After they kill the body, what else can they do to you? Nothing. And you are not your body. You are not your self-identity. They can exile you, beat you, execute you, strip you and leave you naked, but they cannot actually harm “you” any more than a boss or mob in an MMORPG can harm the real “you.” Don’t betray what Jesus taught because of lights, shadows, and illusions of this life. It’s really, really not worth it.
     As for me, I am forced to reckon with this reality by everything which has happened. That isn’t a bad thing. It’s a painful thing, but not a bad one. It’s time to let go of what was. I will never declare “Caesar is Lord” whether it refers to the ancient Romans or to the 47th president of the U.S. But that does not mean I set my heart on hating him or anyone who worships him. It means I speak the truth and accept the consequences of it even as I prepare food and drink for those coming to arrest me, as much as they want.