The Prophetic Malcolm Muggeridge

[djeter]

In 1979 Malcolm Muggeridge gave a short speech at Hilsdale College that more or less repeated some thoughts he had published in various essays before. There he reflected over his life and upbringing to underline how deep his connections with the liberal community had been. It encapsulated some fascinating prophecies that are pretty much coming to fruition wiht the Obama presidency.

Muggeridge was one of a small cadre of western journalists who recognized the evil of Soviet Communism when most were still entranced by the Marxist utopia.For his honest reporting on the Stalinist show trials he lost his job and was blacklisted for a time. Happily he never lost his critical touch.

In the 1980’s Malcolm Muggeridge emerged, along with his friend William F. Buckley as one of the most delightful, articulate, brilliant thinkers and conversationalists in the world. His career (related below) has included journalist and Moscow correspondent for the Manchester Guardian; agent for British Intelligence in Africa during World War II; Liaison – Officer with the Free French; Deputy Editor of the Daily Telegraph; Editor of Punch; and Book Reviewer for Esquire.

In addition to several anthologies of his own writings, he is a published novelist and playwright. His television career began when television began, and has continued in the United States, the United Kingdom and throughout the English-speaking world. In England he had worked extensively with the B.B.C. and in the U.S. with PBS.

From his prophecies concerning the great liberal death wish to his reflections on Jesus Christ, there is a lot here for your to enjoy:

payingattentiontothesky.com/2009/12/14/reading-selections-from-the-great-liberal-death-wish-malcolm-muggeridge/

payingattentiontothesky.com/2009/12/15/book-recommendation-jesus-by-malcolm-muggeridge/

regards

dj

 

[Mark77]

Great Speech!

So much to digest, this really touched me;

" I was reading about it in a long essay by a Yugoslav writer Mihajlo Mihajlov “Mystical Experience of the Labor Camps,” included in his excellent book Underground Notes], who spent some years in a prison in Yugoslavia.

"He cites case after case of people who, like Solzhenitsyn, say that enlightenment came to them in the forced labor camps. **They understood what freedom was when they had lost their freedom, they understood what the purpose of life was when they seemed to have no future. They say, moreover, that when it’s a question of choosing whether to save your soul or your body, the man who chooses to save his soul gathers strength thereby to go on living, whereas the man who chooses to save his body at the expense of his soul loses both body and soul. **

We are so Blessed, given so many gifts that we toss aside like a spoiled 3 year old! We truly do not appreciate what we have until it is gone!

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, Ora Pro Nobis Peccatoribus!

mark

 

[Mark77]

From **"Jesus, the Man Who Lives"by Malcolm Muggeridge;

“here we may understand what St. Augustine meant when he insisted that **‘though the higher things are better than the lower, the sum of all creation is better than the higher things alone, **and how, in the light of this realization, all human progress, human morality, human law, based, as they are, on the opposite proposition — of the intrinsic superiority of the higher over the lower — is seen as written on water, scribbled on dust; like Jesus’ scribble while he was waiting for the accusers of he woman taken in adultery to disperse.”

WOW!

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, Ora Pro Nobis Peccatoribus!

mark

 

[djeter]

I loved this one, too:

Sinners’s Knowledge, Garnered In Sinlessness
"This is like asking why the Word needed to become flesh in the first place; why it did not suffice just as Word. The point is that, to exist for us in time, the Word had to be spoken, and that the Incarnation was God’s way of speaking it. Or, as it is put in the Fourth Gospel in becoming flesh in the person of Jesus, the Word dwelt among us. Thus though Jesus’ coming into the world was divinely ordained, and represented God’s deliberate intervention in history, it was still the case that he had to live in the world as a man among other men. In this capacity, he heard and heeded John’s call to repentance and accepted John’s hands, just as later, he accepted crucifixion at Pilate’s.

In this capacity too, he understood, fully and perfectly, the nature and driving force of sin. How otherwise could he have insisted that just to look after woman to lust after her is to commit adultery? This is sinner’s knowledge, as all sinners at once recognize. How otherwise would he know that the insatiable ego ever raising its cobra head will not be coaxed or persuaded or indulged into quiescence, but must be struck down once and for all? That to live we must die, experiencing the ultimate sweetness of life, the final fragrance and music of it, only in its final rejection.

That when we at last know that life is worthless, then only do we truly live; that when we have absolutely nothing more to hope for —- no dream, however exalted, of delighting or uplifting our fellows, no vista of fulfilled love or of silver evening light falling serenely across our last days – then, at last, we can hope? That when the heart is empty, the mind dry, the soul blown away in dust, and the sheet of white paper that has to be covered stares back at us glassy-eyed, then, and only then, a flame leaps up of certainty, absolute and everlasting, that God awaits with outstretched arms to welcome us into the eternity whence we came? This is what Jesus knew — sinners’s knowledge, garnered in sinlessness."

It’s sad to me that I see so little of Muggeridge these days. I grew up when he was the face of BBC on PBS. Whenever I get a book of his out from the libary I notice they all seem to be coming from storage or have no recent readers who have checked them out.

dj

 

[Reprobus]

You have a very nice web site, and I enjoyed the read. I had heard of Malcolm Muggeridge, but never had much of an idea of who he is.

That Augustinian opportunity he spoke of is not too far off now. We have only a year, maybe two to prepare. The money was my first clue. My grandfather gave me a 1934 silver Peace dollar, and told me it was real money. He told me that some day paper would become worthless. There were some elderly Germans visiting him at his home in Wyoming. They told tales of hyper-inflation. They lived through it, and worse.

I have to date gathered 536 pieces of silver of various sizes, including half-dimes, a piece of eight, an Edward the Confessor penny, and a dozen bricks. I hope soon to have more. It’s hard to make change for a brick, so the smaller the better. These are for the Church.

When the paper goes, ‘social services’ are going to collapse. A lot of people will be hungry, and only the Churches will be left standing. A lot of those hungry people would have been better off at the Church in the first place. Charity was never the government’s job, and the government has most often encouraged or abetted foolish behaviour. The shepherds will need their sticks back. I have to date gathered 536 sticks. It isn’t much. About the cost of a car at today’s prices.

When the paper goes the Church will likely spend any real money they have on things that are at once useful and necessary. I call it the “trickle up” theory.

If you know what I’m on about then please – gather all the silver you can find. Gold too, though it may be too valuable to be useful when buying bread. I have been asking all who will hear me to do the same.