No better time for a return to the golden age

Much that bound earlier generations together has been lost: family, meaningful romantic attachments, children, craftsmanship at work — all are being undone.

They are replaced by nothing of real value, by passing thrills, grandiose gestures of speech by celebrities, by radio and TV presenters that we all know are only a passing flash. There are so many words that I‘d rather not hear, but you cannot escape them. The computer is now means working from home — in chronic isolation.

Each Christmas, we lament for the joys of the pastoral, closely knit, family. Why can we no longer find joy in the ordinary things of life? Humility is the best point of departure for 2021. Are we lost in the cosmos? Is not

COVID-19 preparing the way for a return to faith, to a simpler life, to a rediscovery of what is happening to our human soul?

Ingmar Bergman, the famous Swedish film director, in “Cries and Whispers” (a shocking movie) treats of his own self disgust and his envy of those who have faith. Anna, a housemaid in a dysfunctional family of three women, lights a candle at night, then kneels before a picture of her dead daughter and asks God to love her.

Then she blows out the candle and enjoys an apple. Bergman is trying to lance the wound of his personal suffering. Anna moves silently in the background as the family eats at its own soul. Some deep wound has scarred the sisters. The emotions it portrays and evokes stand for the inexplicable way that life can bless or punish us.

My ideal in theory now, in the face of the pandemic, is to have the heart of a child to return to childhood — to live with astonishment, mystery and simple things.

I would like to be illiterate again and escape from modern culture. Do you feel a bit suffocated? Do you have this nostalgia for a golden age, when there was a deep meaning in people, choices and experiences. As one great Italian film director, Michelangelo Antonioni, said of nostalgia for a golden age: “300 drums on our streets during Holy week will follow me wherever I go.”