Western civilization is crumbling all around us, and the fearful cry it may soon be extinguished by the barbarians. If it be our fate to join the dodo and the passenger pigeon I propose we take the time to see and appreciate the incredible beauty of the universe before the barbarians close it down to us. The universe is beautiful beyond imagining, from the dimmest galaxies at the farthest red shift edges to the deepest ocean canyon on planet Earth; from the scream of a hawk to the fragile beating of a butterfly’s wings; from a Beethoven sonata to a sad and wistful Gaelic folksong; to the majestic arc of an upper deck home run to the hysterical laughter of a small child as dad pushes the swing ever higher. We are surrounded by beauty, and yet most see it not, living their lives in blinkered loneliness, unaware of the stars and the subtle music of the passing seasons, to cry out, at the end of life, that all was in vain, as yet unaware that an unimaginably greater beauty awaits, should they choose to see it. As for the murderous Muslim barbarians, they neither appreciate the beauty of the universe nor will they live long enough to notice it.

A lonely rock strewn shoreline’s end
The smiling face of an old friend
Twin fawns safe by their mama’s side
A laughing child’s first horseback ride
A summer night with stars so low
That woodlands shimmer with their glow
A dusty, winding country road
Past fields that recently been sowed
With seed that burst to life the land
As joyous as a high school band
The gleam of distant Saturn’s rings
The star filled spheres where music sings
Of beauty nested in the folds
Of new mown fields and ancient wolds
When all seems lost, at darkest night
It’s then that strong men rise to fight
Barbarians have come before
And felt the Western way of war
We’ve been bequeathed this land we trod
Where God is beauty, beauty God