Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Preventing Grace

Home
Evangelical
Who Brings Princes To Nothing

Who Brings Princes To Nothing

Last updated on: January 21, 2021 at 10:01 am by Anne Kennedy

Who Brings Princes To Nothing 2021-01-21T10:01:06-04:00 Anne Kennedy

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

This is really super long and interesting–well, the first half is good but then it becomes a sort of too repetitive litany…I eventually tuckered out and skipped to the end. After maximalism, and minimalism, now there’s nothingness, the growing trend of people not just unplugging, but trying to escape from reality altogether. The article is both good (though too long, as I said) and a bit breathless, as if this new, shocking trope had never ever been thought of before. I read almost all of it with the curious sensation that I had actually heard of this somewhere before. But before I tell you where, here are some bits beginning with a description of what it’s like to go into a floatarium (paging Alexander McCall Smith):

He guided me to a little tiled room with a shower and a rounded white pod, about twice the size of a bathtub. Battling claustrophobia, I stripped, washed, got in and shut the lid. While floating in the dark, I was fully relaxed for the first time in what felt like years. The water was a warm embrace from the void — a little death, as a treat. I scheduled another appointment on my way out. When I left the spa, I blinked at the bright sun and felt as if I had slept for eight hours. On the nights that followed my continued sessions, my dreams were always deep and strange.

And this:

For years, an aesthetic mode of nothingness has been ascendant — a literally nihilistic attitude visible in all realms of culture, one intent on the destruction of extraneity in all its forms, up to and including noise, decoration, possessions, identities and face-to-face interaction. Over the past decade, American consumers have glamorized the pursuit of expensive nothing in the form of emptied-out spaces like the open-floor plans of start-up offices, austere loft-condo buildings and anonymous Airbnbs. Minimalism from the Marie Kondo school advocated a jettisoning of possessions that left followers with empty white walls. This aspiration toward disappearance made luxury synonymous with seeing, hearing, owning and even feeling less.

And this:

This desire for nothingness reaches its most literal manifestation in the sensory-deprivation fad, but it can be found in more subtle forms elsewhere: the omnipresent decorative succulents capable of surviving neglect; the gently textured wabi-sabi ceramics that provide an aspirational hobby for the Instagram generation; functionalist beige monochrome outfits from Everlane or Uniqlo; the clingy softness of athleisure and cashmere sweatpants, which have sold out during the pandemic. Elaborate skin-care routines involving pale layers of moisturizers successively shellacked over the body provide almost a literal barrier — we seal ourselves inside ourselves. The late-2010s panacea of CBD is like a mental moisturizer. It promises not the blissed THC haze of the stoner (too uncontrolled, too many thoughts) but the psychological equivalent of white noise, dampening anything negative. A CBD-infused sparkling water introduced in late 2018 named Recess, perhaps the most millennial product ever invented, advertises itself as “an antidote to modern times.” Drink a $5 can, it promises, and you will feel nothing but a collapse into the ambient rainbow haze of its branding.

I love that, “ambient rainbow haze of its branding.” So anyway, as I said, I felt like I had seen this before somewhere and I was totes right! Look at this:

Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust. Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

And this bit:

It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in; who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

And then of course,

Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young man shall fall exhausted…

which I have always known in myself as a person trudging along through life. In the swirl of malaise, though, the line stood out to me with a new freshness. Everyone, even in their rejoicing, is so tired, so jaded, so disappointed. The sign of it is the cynicism, I think, the open disdain that groups of people have for each other, the loud cries of people of their own opinions without the need to moderate or consider the consequences of any particular idea or hope.

But unlike the article, which offered no solution whatsoever, the opening line of the chapter goes like this:

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

And also:

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint (emphasis, as they say, mine).

So anyway, there is a way out of the malaise. There is a way out of the discouragement. There is a way out of the cynicism–and that is to get you up to the height, to lift up your eyes to the hills, to hear the voice crying out that the glory of the Lord will be, indeed, has been revealed in Jesus and that everything will be alright, even if–actually espeically if–you can’t afford an hour at the floatarium.

Demotivations with Anne

Culture Watch

Just Plain Spiritual

Previous Post

January 20, 2021

Nothing to Blog About

Next Post

January 22, 2021 I Know It's Disappointing, But You Do Have To Read It

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category books Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Children in Conversation culture watch Daily Devotions Demotivations with Anne faith alone for the grandparents GAFCON In conversation with children In the News Kitchen Notes Lambeth Learning Notes Life Going On Men are Human Notes from Home Pictures Reading the Bible Saturday Links Sermons Signs of the Apocalypse The Bad Word Association The Prayer of Jonah Travel Notes Uncategorized Witless Wednesdays Work and the Christian

Select a Month June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

According to Titus, what did God do when his kindness and love appeared?

Select your answer to see how you score.

He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit He sent his Son He established his church He destroyed his enemies

Books by This Author Books by Anne Kennedy

See All Titles »