A Bygone Era

I was born in the wrong century. Truly, I was. It's been suggested by dozens of people. 

Since I was little, I've felt out of place in a modern world, lost in an era that seems utterly unfamiliar and quite incompatible with me. My ongoing obsession with the past has nurtured in me rather too much of an acquaintance with it, for more and more often I find myself wishing that my entire existence could have happened a century or two ago. 

I've always spoken and written in an old-fashioned and elaborate manner. I've always avoided modern fashion in favour of classical skirts and dresses. I've always had a penchant for the antiquated art of housewifery. I've always been teased for acting so incredibly old-fashioned. But I can't help it. It's just in my nature.

I love Little Women. I adore Jane Austen. Gone with the Wind, Downton Abbey, Jane Eyre, Lark Rise to Candleford, Little House on the Prairie.... the list is endless. EVERYTHING (and I do mean everything) I read is either written in or about the distant past. I've completely submerged myself in a bygone era and in doing so have unwittingly rendered myself disdainful, even contemptuous, of the present. 

There is so much of our modern society that breaks my heart. Forget the fact that we no longer dress in ball-gowns and make jam from scratch (well, some of us do... the jam, not the ball-gowns). The entire morality of past centuries seems to have disappeared almost entirely. Goodness, holiness and virtue, once things that were valued and praised in society, now seem to be the things which it scorns and rejects. In the past century or two, the entire human culture has been transformed. Obviously not all of this is for the worse, but I truly believe a good deal of it is.

I'm sure that in Austen's day there was a good deal of corruption and wickedness present, but it seems to me that the difference between her society and ours is that now immorality has become socially acceptable. We have become so desensitised to everything unholy that we no longer fight for virtue. And it truly breaks my heart. 

Sometimes I do wish that I could live in a bygone era. That I could escape a society of drug abuse, abortion, violence, divorce, lies and deceit. I know that things may not have been as good as I dream them to have been back then, but I'm pretty sure that I would have felt much less a stranger to society in those times. I sure would miss indoor plumbing though.

Despite an ever-changing society, God seems to remain the one constant throughout all history. Sure, humankind's perception of God has changed greatly over time, but the true goodness, holiness, morality and virtue which our Lord epitomises has never, and will never change. And thought we may live in a society which ignores and even encourages immorality, God will always be there as a perfect and beautiful source of truth and virtue.

Maybe I can't keep dwelling on a society that has gone with the wind. I can't keep living in the past. I can only trust in my God and anticipate the future with hope and acceptance.

AMDG