Living In The Land of Nod

The Land of Nod is a mythological place, taken from a real place found in a line in Genesis. Cain went to the Land of Nod after he killed Abel.

I am living in the Land of Nod. The drugs of consumerism and materialism have put millions of people asleep in Iowa and Illinois. When will they wake up? Cain ran to the Land of Nod to be safe, but the metaphor changed to one of somnolence.  People are asleep because they do not want to face a change of lifestyle. Those who are asleep have drugged themselves into a state of unreality. The common, everyday events fill up their day, as do events such as too much entertainment and too much shopping. This activity is done to avoid reality.

But, as the Land of Nod became a metaphor for a place where people are asleep, many literary references to the Land of Nod, including a poem I grew up with by Robert Louis Stevenson, used the name.

Here is the poem.

The Land of Nod

From breakfast on through all the day
At home among my friends I stay,
But every night I go abroad
Afar into the land of Nod.

All by myself I have to go,
With none to tell me what to do --
All alone beside the streams
And up the mountain-sides of dreams.

The strangest things are there for me,
Both things to eat and things to see,
And many frightening sights abroad
Till morning in the land of Nod.

Try as I like to find the way,
I never can get back by day,
Nor can remember plain and clear
The curious music that I hear. 

The music comes from the sounds of death, the dirges of the soul. What can I do to help people wake up? What can I do to break through the miasma of status seeking, buying, getting into debt, and anxiety about things which will pass away very soon? I am at a loss. 

All I can do is write, and pray, and do penance. I am afraid America will not wake up until there is a horrible time of tribulation. I think part of the problem is that the Church in America has taken its eyes off our final goal, which is heaven. All our efforts should be on gaining everlasting life. All our decisions should be with heaven in mind.

But, when this world becomes too important and the comforts of this world become the focus and goal of all activity, people fall asleep.

The evil of departing from the teaching that there is a hell and that people go there is obvious in this area where I am staying. Without giving names, I can assure you that many people have watched talks by a famous priest who denies there are people in hell. This creates an unreal expectation for people and the heresy of universal salvation becomes a standard of belief.

Being asleep means that one does not want to find out the Truth. Being asleep means that one does not read or study the teachings of the Catholic Church. Being asleep means that one does not see the need for perfection.

So many are in the Land of Nod....