While we easily see evil in the way of crime and abortion,  we rarely take note of how it manifests in the way of disorientation. The great manifestation of our culture is precisely this. We see it at all levels. Disorientation is when, for example (and speaking of abortion), the first black president remains in favor of abortion rights even though it kills a third of all black children. While blacks constitute 12 percent of the population, they account for 36 percent of abortions -- nearly 14 million since 1973, such that vastly more blacks have succumbed to abortion than AIDs, violent crime, heart disease, and cancer put together. It is a disorientation when those in our society who are very compassionate in other ways support a "right" that is a genocide. Meanwhile, there is support including from the president for Planned Parenthood -- which has a disproportionate number of clinics in minority neighborhoods and was founded by a woman who exactly promoted extermination of unwanted minorities.

This is true disorientation: when the well-intentioned or seemingly well-intentioned are deceived and tend to evil without knowing it. It has afflicted us all. It affects the liberal as well as the conservative. It is obvious in those too who fight abortion but promote war. Recently, the disorientation has been noted in L'Osservatore Romano when a columnist for this Vatican newspaper gave a glowing review to the latest Harry Potter movie, even though there is all but ironclad proof that the Harry Potter books have caused an explosion in teen witchcraft (more on this next installment).

When good is evil and evil is good, this is the disorientation of our times and something we often overlook. A first sign of evil is confusion and we are a confused society and a confused world, which is going to lead to major events (which some call chastisement but  we might also call a "reorientation"). It is not only in our public life. We all go through periods of blindness, whereby we can see all that is wrong with others without noting the blots in our own spirits. When a devout person exhibits hostility and lacks charity (often over a religious matter), this too is disorientation.

The answer is prayer and purging those blots: self-deliverance, through pleas to the Holy Spirit. In prayer, we can see the truth. In prayer, we can see more clearly. When someone says he is too busy to pray, we know that this person is too busy not to pray -- and that if John Paul II could spend six to seven hours a day in prayer, we can also make time for a Rosary. Someday, you will see how many "important" matters were not really important at all and you will regret not having prayed instead of being "busy." Vacation time in an excellent time to reorient.

It is the straying from prayerfulness -- true devotion -- that has brought such confusion. Look at past societies (such as Germany) that have suffered through mass disorientation. Good as evil and evil as good. We are now doing the same -- in public and private. It has been going on since the Fifties and Sixties (when drugs and music helped fuel the confusion). If in your life you feel confused, pray to see the entire truth of your circumstance. Pray to see yourself from all sides. Pray to see yourself as God does and as you will from the other side of the veil. One day, we will all see our lives in review, and we can pray now to know how to make that review a pleasant one. When we are disoriented, we feel anxiety (subconsciously, we fear getting lost), which is why a sense of peace indicates that we are oriented in the proper direction.