This year, before the Magi even arrived to bring Him their presents, the baby Jesus delivered me mine. We were driving back from viewing the Christmas lights in wonderful Downtown Dallas (where I lived till my rescue beagles got me unceremoniously evicted) when we saw something beautiful. Haunting like the smoking ruins of Sodom, righteous as the rubble of the Bunker in Berlin.

We saw our local Buzzbrews restaurant shuttered and up for rent. I quickly found on my phone that the small, once-thriving chain went bankrupt. And we cackled all the way home.

Lot Mourns His Favorite Falafel Cart in Sodom

There was also a tinge of sadness, as I’m sure Lot felt as he resisted the urge to look back behind him at his favorite falafel cart, melting beneath the brimstone. You see, Buzzbrews had once been a regular haunt of mine. It offered tasty, creative food at reasonable prices. It was open late, in a town where they roll up the sidewalks at 8:45 p.m.

Its drink menu was impressive, with microbrews and imports that are often hard to find. It even offered arts nights that I used to attend, such as “Classical Open Mic,” where opera singers and instrumentalists would perform to appreciative crowds. The staff were quirky and friendly, and I used to tip them lavishly.

Masked Pro-Groomer Gunmen Menacing Christians

But I haven’t darkened the door of the place for many months. Not since Buzzbrews hosted a “family friendly” drag show organized by groomers. The event was far worse than it sounds, since on the day it occurred, when Christians peacefully protested outside, they were terrorized by masked, hooded Antifa activists wielding AR-15 rifles. Did Buzzbrews invite those thugs? I really don’t know. They sure didn’t send them away. Americans reading their bibles and singing hymns got threatened by anonymous thugs with semi-automatics for defending children’s innocence.

From the moment I heard that the fun restaurant I used to enjoy had declared itself the foe of everything decent and sane, I knew I wouldn’t spend a dime there if it were the last gastropub on earth. I felt not just revolted but betrayed, and we rightly hate traitors far more than simple enemies. If a meteorite had struck the place and immolated it, I’d have shown up and toasted marshmallows over the ashes.

Even on a purely natural level, it’s “Darwin Award” stupid for a restaurant based in Dallas to side with Antifa thugs and child-obsessed drag queens. Maybe that will boost your business in Austin, or (alas!) my native New York City. But despite the plethora of rainbow-flagged ex-Christian churches in some parts of town, this level of thuggery just won’t fly in Dallas. Not yet, anyway. When a company that’s too dumb and wicked to live goes belly up, it would take a man with a heart of stone not to laugh.

What We Can’t Just Write Off and Laugh At

But as I say all this, I think about what Paul Harvey used to call “the rest of the story.” Plenty of innocent employees, from waitresses to dishwashers, lost their jobs. The classical musicians might not find another pub to host them. And on the most personal level, I no longer can go out and enjoy English-style mushy peas with chimichurri steak at 11 p.m.

How many of the best things in our lives have been rendered toxic, dangerous, or hostile while we watched? The cities with the most beautiful downtowns and best architecture are almost uniformly blue, which means they’re chaotic and dangerous. The Art Deco treasures of downtown Detroit stand neglected and crumbling. The American institution of lighting the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center was disrupted by Hamas supporters. The exquisite Gothic campus of Yale, where I went to college, is now a cult compound.

The earthly natural paradise that is California is becoming uninhabitable, with shoplifting decriminalized and sidewalks covered in hobo poop, while the State encourages the chemical castration of children. When I visited gorgeous downtown Seattle with Eric Metaxas, and we ate at a steakhouse with the wonderful staff of the Discovery Institute, we couldn’t walk the two blocks back to our hotel: An Antifa-linked demonstration had taken over the area, so we had to be driven right to our door in an SUV.

All the best places are turning into post-apocalyptic Mad Max hellscapes. And the best we can do is to flee.

Our Military, Commanded by Demons

America’s military has been hijacked by political commissars, who intentionally recruit mentally ill transgender servicemen — while kicking to the curb those who conscientiously refused the Dead Baby Vaccine. When I see that every branch of the military is struggling to scrape from the barrel’s bottom enough personnel each year, what should I think? If we lost the next stupid war that our masters launched for profit, should that be some cold comfort to me? Should I chuckle with grim satisfaction that serving Satan seems not to pay?

Or mourn the callous destruction of one more good thing in the world?

It’s some of both, I think. I mourn for the people trapped in those blue cities, and the glorious sights I probably won’t have the nerve to go see. I think of the past generations that built up our social capital, and feel sad on their behalf that our generation has let it all slip through our fingers.

And I’m reminded ever more strongly that we have no earthly home — not till Christ comes again to make all things new. Then the New Jerusalem will rise around our resurrected bodies, in a peaceful world ruled by Jesus. And I am personally convicted that all the buildings will be Art Deco.

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or co-author of ten books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. He is co-author with Jason Jones of “God, Guns, & the Government.”