It's almost an hour past midnight of the 4th of July and before retiring for the night I checked the Internet news one last time. A front page article by Liz Peek, who according to the by-line "contributes frequently to FoxNews.com" caught my attention. The title is "Be Proud, America: Ignore the doom and gloom, ours is a great country." It's a small piece about why she loves America. I've given many of the very same opinions in past posts. She advises towards the end of the article "...let us put aside the gloom and doom and recommit to what has made our country great: belief in ourselves (emphasis mine), concern for our neighbor, and optimism that the best is yet to come." I have different thoughts on this and bring back a post from May of 2011 to express them:
Rest Unassured
Somewhere in these past posts I've mentioned the following thought for it has been a recurring one to me from time to time, as recently as yesterday as I drove through the beautiful, half residential-half country, roads of eastern Ohio. Away from the radio, the newspapers, books and television, as I might take a drive like this or walk in a park, the serenity and peace of life in America seems every bit the same as when I was in my teens. Automobiles gently traverse the neighborhood streets, stopping dutifully at every stop sign, or they travel on the parkways at higher speeds with today's modern technology quietly taking us to a shopping mall or home from work. Laughter and talk fill the Starbucks and the sidewalks of our towns, mothers push strollers and at home men reach first for the sports pages. The supermarkets may be much larger with every imaginable taste but we fill up the same buggies with the same essential food stuffs as in the old A&Ps. Appearances and particulars of all the above are new and different but the serene concourse of life appears not to have changed nor would I or anyone reading this want it to.
It's only when we let in the news of the day that this tranquility is threatened and even then the click of the remote, the ring of the cell phone or the sudden remembrance of an errand that needs done erases a feeling of urgency that might be settling into our minds. My message throughout these posts is that the serenity of a country drive or a stroll through town, beautiful and enjoyable as they are, are part of a shadow world where the intensity of the sun, that would bake us if we bask in it, is hidden. The blast of heat troubles us only when the clouds break for a minute or two, here or there. This has been my message that was so much more eloquently stated in the old Puritan prayer of my last post...O my forgetful soul, awaken from thy wandering dream.
Some can audaciously say as Timothy McVeigh did in quoting the Victorian poem Invictus on that gurney before being injected with the serum that would take him to his maker...I am the master of my fate: the captain of my soul, but I would plead with them to consider that as they might recite this ode to autonomy that their children stand alongside them. What they pay attention to, or fail to pay attention to, affects them as well. As with a pregnant mother, what you take in feeds more than yourself.
Our national security is being compromised for political gain. Osama bin Laden's death could not even be announced without evidence that politics dictates even the most sensitive matters. Even the extraordinary abilities of our military cannot overcome an administration that glues together a mosaic of chaos not order. Our financial stability is gone. The creed that once united us as Americans has faded as the In God We Trust on a well-worn 1909 penny. The very gospel of Jesus Christ has been so watered-down that it often bears no taste of salvation or aroma of wisdom and discernment.
If we could see beyond what we so often laugh at on the television or in the theater, as to its effects on our discernment, we would be convulsed with sobs. If we could grasp the true belief system our children will inherit with the course that we are on, all of our hope would collapse as those towers on 9/11. If we could fully realize how the mission of many whose responsibility is to protect America has morphed into defending the sensitivities of some who have come to America only to plant a flag of Sharia Law, we might then awaken.
In reality, the tranquility has not been there for a long time, for it takes decades for a glacier to cover over all forms of life and it has taken decades for us to rid our minds of discernment, logic and common sense. We have one, and only one, offensive weapon not tainted by man for it was not formed by him, and that is the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17).
God dispels the clouds of ignorance through our subsequent prayers, not that we might cover our eyes from a blazing sun, but that we might gaze in adoration at the Son, our only hope. There will indeed be a day when the Jesus Christ returns amidst the clouds and men will then hide. Whether this is near or far no one knows for we do not know what a day brings but... rest unassured... for we, as a nation, are indeed asleep and we will either awaken or perish in that sleep.
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Political Thought and the Christian
