Good morning from cool, crisp NE Ohio and have awakened to a new busy day beginning work on a Christmas cantata in a little while with my church choir. I always enjoy that for it is is challenging but much rewarding process. So today will be a great day for I get to do, again, one of the things I love to do. As well, I went to bed exhausted from having worked two church services in a county jail with a total of 45 male inmates; something else I get to do and last night the power of the Holy Spirit was so very evident.
Yesterday I found myself thinking about family, security, health, work, grand childrens' lives after I have left this earthly domain; things I believe we all at some time or other will realize our mind has taken us down the very special trail of memories and hopes. I have said this many times for I heard the great Cathedral Quartet's George Younce say that there comes a time in every one's life when you realize you have more years behind you than you do in front of you and on that day, that moment, the coloration and tone of life changes. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times I have shared that in prison chapel services for it is so very true.
This morning I have awoke with the context in mind that many of my readers are on the down slope of life's mountain. At sixty-six years old, I am blessed to state that I have never felt better, never enjoyed all I get to do more and the greater news is in knowing that when my final breath is taken, I will spent eternity in Heaven with Christ and I believe countless people God has allowed me access to via teaching, singing, speaking, interfacing with, family, friends and on and on. But before I get to that great horizon, too many of us have this crawling sense of the reality of our world in which we reside today.
Some people have indicated to me that read my blogs, article commentaries, FB posts and these are people that know me to some degree, that my writing and comments have "darkened" and that I now tend more toward to "bad" things in our world instead of being the eternal optimist and "cheerleader" and encourager in my writings. This has happened with only a few but feedback is something I process very deeply for content and context. When holding up the mirror as this analysis to myself and my thought process that finds its way into my words and expressions, I will admit that some of the darkening is true. Mind you, I have great love and hope in the people in this world and what some nations stand for and ideologies present but in complete honesty there are some very real seemingly ever present forces that are influencing my general thoughts and assessment of my global world.
The short list of influences me would be the national political leadership and legislative process. Never have I been less impressed with this POTUS and his approach to leading. While I did not vote for him, I did have great hope for his leadership but what the world has seen is ineptitude, slick tongued rhetoric and unimaginable growth of taxpayer funded government. As Commander-in-Chief I just have to scratch my head in wonderment. Add to that disaster the division and lack of energy and focus in Congress and you have an equation of disorder well into the future. Even with the ISIS threat which is global, Congress is about to leave Washington again for campaigning instead of pulling together, working 24/7 to craft bipartisan legislation to better our nation. Instead .. 1-8-0 approach to leading.
Never have I been sicker of the whole "race" issue that is being inflamed by media, distorted stories, "external agitators" I heard a Ferguson protester try to defend rock and bottle throwing at the police as they all attempted to close down an entire Interstate highway. If you want to discuss the pitfalls of race, and there are many, then let's discuss them in civil, productive means and not this attempt to replicate the 1960s some of us lived during and through. The matter of political correctness is a minefield that has been made impossible to navigate by anyone. Last night during one of the chapel services I heard three African American men calling each other the "N" term and just laughing like little monkeys. Oh, wait, that sentence is no doubt racist isn't it?! America is looking and acting like an old, tired, devolving into a second tier nation and this matter of race and how it is being addressed is forcing backward direction more rapidly. We are better than this ... I thought!
Those two very flagrant, blatant, disoriented forces come to confluence have affected my mindset greatly for what happens in America affects the rest of the world for many reasons and in many ways. Let me say that I love my country. Let me further state that the pace and depth of depravity I see eating away at the fabric of this once, ONCE, great nation is disheartening for me. Abortions, drug abuse, physical abuse, suicides, atrocities, child molestation, divorce, same sex marriages, homosexuality ... and the list goes on, touches and affects me deeply. I live in a world of prisoners most of which have lived and will die in the throws of this world described in the previous sentence. It cannot help but rub off on me as I seek to minister the Gospel to these men and women but in the process get to know many of them, their horrific histories and depressed hopes as they look ahead.
So yes, those three paragraphed forces have affected my heart so how could that not find its way to my keystrokes from my heart? I have great hope for this nation but this nation find the will to seek a hope for itself and that begins with leadership. If that is true, and it is very true, then our current national leadership is worthy of dismissal and imprisonment for failing to lead a nation! It is simply ridiculous and disheartening. But I also realize that this is all part of God's plan for I believe with all that is within me that God has pulled away from the America we have known for we have turned so far from God is so many ways that He is allowing us to have our way and not His!
So yes, I guess my writing style has darkened and I do find myself concerned about the paleness of the moon as it rises no longer brightening up our world but dissolved into the bleakness of our self inflicted societal decay. This has not been an easy piece to write for it has required deep internal scalpel digging but these words from my heart amplify what I am feeling about our world as we watch the events of this world spiral into something is that is scary, worrisome and self induced. In other words, are getting exactly what we deserve!
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