Friday.....America.....Abe's Best Friend

I don't know the word to choose, heartbreaking....discouraging, to have not only witnessed America's decline but been a part of it?  Indeed I did my part for that decline that probably started in the 1960s. We were too interested in our music, our hair and a good time. My drug of choice in my early 20s was alcohol and I still wince when I think of those days. A few of my extracurricular exploits could only be described as hair raising and it is only the grace of God that I wasn't called to account at that time. My college days were not directed very well. The mercy shown to me and blessings given to the poster boy of wretches overcomes me time and again. The 1980s was a remarkable decade.  It started earlier but Americans became increasingly religious and God-fearing. It wasn't Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell that started it for they themselves were part of it.  It wasn't Ronald Reagan that paved the way, for it paved the way for him as well as Jimmy Carter and Charles Colson.  It was a decade of respite from the secular onslaught that was assaulting America in the form of abortion and court decisions that found God guilty of impersonating Himself.  We all went the other way in the 90s and Jerry Falwell never lived down his remark that 9/11 might have something to do with God's judgement. The result of it all is that we split as a nation, in many ways. The attacks of that September morning ignited embers of patriotism and love of country that were all but dead. We were the final holdout in the Western World that would blame national borders for war, and we would have fully given in to the global village mentality by now if it were not for those constant reminders of America's past that show up from time to time in movies, older textbooks, reminiscences of older Americans and the discovery from younger ones that have not drunk the cool aid as of yet and publish.  Another division surfaced when postmodernism literally ravaged common sense, reality, reason and even Christianity while those untouched struggled against arguments that had no use of common sense and actually barred logic, facts and truth.  So here we are at the very edge of the precipace and yet so consumed with sports, entertainments and ourselves that we have one leg lifted and stretched out over that abyss.  There is though, the beam of a lighthouse warning us that shoals and rocks are ahead but only God knows if this nation will be brought to its knees and its children made wards of the state, or will be given more time.  Barbarians have come in amongst us and we have given them chairs in our universities, the best seats in our churches and synagogues and placed  gavels in their hands. We live in a time that calls for extreme soberness but summer is almost here and even churches alter their ministries for the congregation to enjoy a wide range of activities that keeps the family busy until school starts again. It has been documented many times that books publiched today use shorter sentences and far less punctuation.  Newpaper and magazine articles have been drastically shortened to keep the readers interest and even that is not working. Yet the new houses are beautiful, the new automobiles almost park themselves and the hand-held electronic devices threaten to relegate Gutenberg's invention to the same trivia museum as the 8 track tape deck. By far the worst change is in how we process information...how we think. I came across a quote from Abraham Lincoln the other day, My best friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read. I cannot give books through this blog but I can recommend them and here are three that deal with the culture, the church and the
university.