Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Rod Dreher's avatar

A reader e-mails:

<<The Olympic opening was carefully scripted and it tells a cohesive story. The error I think people are making is to interpret scenes independently. The show starts with three children entering a boat in which they are welcomed by a cloaked figure which is depicted like Charon in Greek mythology. They are obviously taken down river Styx, enter a tunnel and then emerge. We are in the Underworld from that point on. The headless corpses, burning islands, flying ghosts, lost souls on the shores of the river all set the stage. The most shocking scene to me was the cloaked rider on the pale horse leading the nations to the stage with the golden bull. This is followed by the Celine Dion song which I will post here translated to English:

The blue sky above us may collapse

And the Earth may well crumble

I don't care if you love me

I don't give a damn about the whole world

As long as love floods my mornings

As long as my body trembles under your hands

I don't care about problems

My love, since you love me

I would go to the ends of the earth

I would dye my hair blonde

If you asked me to

I would go and take down the Moon

I would go and steal fortune

If you asked me to

I would deny my homeland

I would deny my friends

If you asked me to

People can laugh at me

I would do anything

If you asked me to

If one day, life tears you away from me

If you die, if you are far from me

I don't care if you love me

Because I would die too

We will have eternity for ourselves

In the blue of all immensity

In heaven, no more problems

My love, do you believe we love each other?

God reunites those who love each other

This Edith Piaf song was chosen with a specific purpose. When sang in the underworld, the lyrics pledging absolute loyalty to the golden bull or dark forces, a willingness to sacrifice all mortal attachments, give up your friends, your homeland, a willingness to change your essence or identity, defying the natural order by taking down the moon, with the end of the song mocking God one more time, ironically implying that he will reunite those who love each other, in this case a union with dark forces that mimics and rivals God's love. A perfect song for the perfect ending of a diabolical ritual.>>

Expand full comment
Tee Stoney's avatar

Keep in mind what Hell ultimately wants. They hate us because God loves us. They cannot attack God directly, though they would love that ability. But their "rebellion" was a doomed effort from the start, which once again reveals something about the insanity and short-sighted stupidity of Hell. But they come after us because they cannot come after God. They hate God and everything He loves and stands for. So if they cannot attack Him directly, they come after His creation, including His most beloved, us. Stealing our worship, degrading our love, our appreciation of beauty, the various ways we take joy in how we experience creation (our enjoyment of food into gluttony, our enjoyment of drink into drunkenness, our enjoyment of physical love into wanton lust and all the bad things that come over the careless exercising of that, and so forth and so on.) But it is ultimately about our annihilation. Even our "worship", which is adoring and comprehending the divine, they seek to pervert. Ultimately, they don't really care for it for themselves, not for its own sake. It does nothing for them and they loathe it. They cannot have that relationship we can have with God. They want to use it, like they use everything else, to pervert, degrade and destroy. And to steal what is rightly God's and what we were made for.

All ultimately to lead us to destruction. And though they would take joy in pulling the trigger themselves, what gives Hell ultimate pleasure is seeing us doing it to ourselves. It is the one way, ultimate way, they have to hurt God. And it is curious, when you read accounts of where demons seem to want to take humans, is to convince us to kill ourselves, that life is no longer worth living, that the only thing to do is toss ourselves into the abyss. That is their last card they have to play, the worst blow they can inflict against the Almighty, whom they loathe.

That's the ultimate of this desperate dance of empty depravity. It is no celebration of life, and you can see the desperation in their eyes. It is the opposte.

France is a nation of deep history and culture, and this was their chance to showcase it to the world. Communist China, at the Beijing Olympics, may be a totalitarian state and not in the best shape themselves. But they still, somehow, had a sense of themselves as a nation, with all that means.

FRance, or at least those put in charge of these ceremonies, could not find that sense in themselves.

That blackout that struck Paris after, with that church lit up, was God letting those people know that a. there is hope still, even now, for all those who will turn to Him, and b. He always will get in the last word.

And in the end, all will see, but question is, will they comprehend?

Pray for FRance. Pray for us all.

Expand full comment
340 more comments...

No posts