Don't Pass This Post On!!!

        A young person quite naturally thinks he knows more than the parent for he see flaws from a 24/7 home life. What he doesn't realize is that he himself is a factory for sin and error and that that parent most likely has done reasonably well at guiding them in a world determinedly hostile to God. One need look no further than our Founding Fathers, flawed as any other men, to see how imperfect men could come up with such a wise document, and the highest example of the genius of our forefathers would be the Puritans who concocted the Westminster Standards, documents of such precision that they serve as moorings to faithful churches even in this postmodern world. God guides our thoughts and our pens in instances such as these. When his hand is lifted we come up with  books such as Das Kapital, Mein Kampf or Mao's Little Red Book!
       I wouldn't want to be young again for I was headed to being a poster boy for immature, irrational thought all the while thinking that I was compassionate and a defender of the unfortunate. I found out that defending the unfortunate involved strengthening what was right.... not tearing it down, that honest inquiry does not mean fighting for a platform for ideas that have long since been proven wrong, and that true liberty is enslaving oneself to that which is good and..."there is none good but one, that is, God." (Mk 10:18 KJV)
        Let me give you two very easy reads for summer and I can assure you that you will benefit from both. The first, but not first in importance for obvious reasons, is by Professor of International Relations at Boston University Angelo M. Codevilla and the book is The Ruling Class; How Political Elites Hijacked America. the second written by Michael Horton, the J. Gresham Machen professor of Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California and the book is Putting The Amazing Back Into Grace, Embracing the Heart of the Gospel.
       The following post is a few years old. I add it here because it is one of the many posts that I had written addressed to the youth:

In Due Time

       It was the winter of 1959 in Buffalo, New York. There was just enough light to put the ice skates on and whack the homemade puck around for a little while on the toddler's play area turned hockey rink but no one had shown up. The snowflakes falling were large...I remember that. All dressed up, or bundled up, and no where to go, so to speak. A few feet away from the chain-link fence was (and still is today) a small hill, maybe six feet high at the most, where I once, in summertime, was riding my bike home with groceries on the handlebars and hit a rock or something on that hill and crashed but survived, shaken but unhurt. A tree was growing beside the path worn by bike riders and all the leaves were long gone, the branches covered by a blanket of snow. I climbed up that tree and peered off to the north and the south etc., as a seaman in a crows nest would. I contemplated life and the beauty of the snowfall and the desolate fields behind the Airport Plaza. My parents had separated and there wasn't much money. With no siblings or father at home, and my mother working hard, all I had was the silver screen and television to show me what life was about. Sometimes it was about patriotism and courage for it could not have been too long since I watched Fess Parker gaze off over the Texas landscape as his friend Georgie Russell strummed that ballad Farewell the night before the Mexicans overran the Alamo. Life was gay (not as used today) as Fred and Ginger would glide across the screen. Life was dramatic as I watched Robert Ryan dig for gold on his own farm when he should have been farming it. I didn't come close to understanding that movie-God's Little Acre! Life was funny as Lou Costello was constantly getting he and Bud Abbot in trouble. And life was this curious thing called romance. Life was black and white, heroes and villains, good and bad. I had no idea what I wanted to do in this life. I stumbled around in the confusion of unmentored youth until I joined the army then marched around in the confusion of unmentored young adulthood. I married a wonderful young lady (I still can't figure that one out either) and stumbled around a little bit more before God said "I will have mercy on that one." I will never figure that out until He tells me Himself. And then a son came. I only had one bit of wisdom from my past for what was within my scope of raising him; whatever I did in youth, have him do the opposite. The television was stored in the basement for nine years and he recently graduated with honors from law school. Now its time to turn attention back to myself. Lets see...what do I want to do in life? Besides work in a coal-fired power plant and write a blog that is. Well, I guess that is, what it is, and it is good..., maybe not the blog, but God's plan. I sat down tonight to write to the youth and this came out. By the way, don't pass this post on to anyone, it's kind of embarrassing, but to those youth, should any read this, one piece of advice: your scope of knowledge is greatly limited right now and you are a source of income to those who would readily sell you as a fish at Wholey's Market on our Pittsburgh strip! Examine the issues of the day, indeed-search for truth but burn no bridges until you see Christ's imprint on every page of Scripture. Hold fast, dig in, establish a perimeter and keep watch. None other than Jesus Christ commands this army. Supplies will always be there and reinforcements when necessary. No military victory any mortal army ever achieved will compare to when Christ returns with His holy angels. Trust in Him and not yourself for He has joys unspeakable to share with you...in due time!

Generations

         Pittsburgh was known for its steel mills but tucked away in a valley next to those mills was another major industrial enterprise. George Westinghouse invented the airbrake and followed that with the Westinghouse Electric Company. Nikola Tesla worked for Westinghouse whose chief competitor was Thomas Edison's General Electric. Above the Westinghouse plant was the Bessemer Terrace and just over the hill was Braddock Pennsylvania where General Braddock was killed while one of his young officers, George Washington survived to greater fame. It is a historic and industrially historic area.
         Poland, England, Ireland and Scotland contributed to the making of two families that were my grandparents. The Westinghouse Electric Corporation supplied them with employment. Both Grandfathers, my father and numerous uncles retired from Westinghouse which took them through the Great Depression. Although not as bad as described in The Grapes of Wrath, there was no money to spare. My grandfather worked away in the basement for a toy cradle or doll that was added to an orange for a Christmas present. I have visited my mother and father's childhood homes on occasion, looked over the same hill where my mother and her friends climbed down a ways to smoke a cigarette. I visited the hospital building that my mother worked at a switchboard where my father would visit to talk after returning home from the Pacific, badly burned from a Kamikaze attack on his transport ship.
         What might my son be able to say of me? He visited the modest apartments where my mother and I lived, the all boys high school where I wore a tie and sports coat, The storefront's that I hung around and ballfields where my time was spent or the university my wife and I graduated from. He can talk about a trip to Europe, Greece and Turkey and numerous vacations up and down the East Coast as well as Civil War battlefields and Disney World. He can talk about nightly conversations on the Christian faith, life and politics. Lord willing and only through God's grace, should He grant it, what will his son or daughter say of him?
         The challenges of this generation will be enormous. They will be fighting for the very existence of America. They will have to ward off the long tentacles of Postmodernism. Will they see a Reformation, much needed in the church? Or will they be the generation that witnesses the climatic events the Bible tells of when Jesus Christ returns. Maybe, should the Lord tarry, something like this will make a good fiction trilogy. I wasted much of my youth. I contributed little. Maybe that is why I am trying to make up for lost time as the society that I helped corrupt through my narcissism and inattention begins to completely unravel. I do have the opportunity to give advice to a younger generation through the painful wisdom of past mistakes. God extended His grace and blessing to me, which should encourage anyone. If you have read some of my previous posts, you may think that I am a pessimist. I consider myself a complete optimist, for I know that the bleaker the situation, the more wonderful His rescue would be, and it surely would come about should He will it. And if He does not will it, then that is equally part of His plan that will bring Him glory and that is the only thing of real importance.