Its 10:50 A.M., Tuesday morning. Our church building is located on a hill just outside of Maypearl. The wind is howling and it seems colder than the temperature would suggest. My daughter Rona and her husband are with us this week. They arrived from St Louis, Mo. Monday morning about 4:30. Its great having them with us and tonight we will celebrate my grandson's 10th birthday. It seems like only yesterday that we were in the hospital comforting mom as Elvis was making his way into the world. Time does fly.

Recently I have re-read Pitirim Sorokin's THE CRISIS OF OUR AGE. Sorokin wrote this work in 1941. He lived in the Soviet Union through the revolution of 1917 and was sentenced to death in 1922, but was later banished from the country and in 1930 began the sociology department at Harvard University where he taught until his retirement in 1955. He died in 1968.

Reading his work of 1941 is like reading a current critique of our 2008 culture. He divides history into periods. The periods cycle and re-cycle. A period may last a century or a millenium. The three periods into which he divides history are (1) ideational (2) sensate and (3) idealism. The ideational is characterized by creativity and development in the areas of religion, ethics and philosophy. The sensate features development in the material world of science, empire building and economics. Idealism is a combination of thought and reason, as well as some features of the ideational. He argues that as a period begins it has high energy and creativity, but that as it advances the creative wanes and fatigue grows. As a period begins its death cycle and transitions to another mode, great stress, wars, psychological issue and pessimism emerge. He believed that beginning in about AD 1300, we entered into a sensate period. By late in the 19th century we were beginning to grow old and that by mid 20th century we were well into the transition to either ideational or idealism.

He suggests that the greatest names and most creative minds of science, the arts, poltics etc. lived in the heyday of the sensate culture from about 1500 to 1850. Leaders of the last 150 years are less creative and more imitative. Style has replaced substance. Glitter and size have replaced creativity. Throw away best-sellers have replaced classic literature. As we look back 67 years, we can see that he was prescient. Today there is much more talk about spirituality and less talk about creative theories. The question remains open as to where we are going, but it seems that he was onto something even if his models may not have been the best or exhausted the options. Will Christianity once again advance around the world or will the ideational option be characterized by the continuing advancement of Islam. Will our grandchildren live to see sharia law in America or will America once again become a shining light for democratic values and laws. Time, prayer and people will tell the tale. At the moment God only knows the outcome.