How do you contend with a world gone mad? Keep your own counsel and look out for your own.

With a glance back to The Desperation Waltz, we take on the aftermath of the Charleston shooting and sundry other cargo-cult rain dances, illustrating why you are wise to focus on those values nearest and dearest to your self.

I love the human mind, but there is a certain dismaying irony to telling living organisms that being alive and loving it are not just appropriate but completely normal and natural.

How screwed up is your thinking? When I say that my best advice to any organism is “look out for your own” – you want to argue with me.

Keep your own counsel – oh, yes, do. But the survivors of these messes will have lived my way. If you don’t look out for your own, it will be swept away in the maelstrom.

How’s that for church?