Saturday, December 6, 2014

America's New Pastime -- Doubting

It is a rainy, cold, gray day here in NE Ohio which, I think am realizing, is a metaphor for We the People.  I have this friend, a poster child for the Liberals, that loves to espouse the wonders of this POTUS and made more enthused by the economy of late.  I guess I need to hear that even though I do not care for this President nor his Administration over these six years but give credit where credit is due I believe.  I could challenge the logic of the numbers but that is not where my heart is on this bleak day.  My greater concern far transcends economic numbers that are usually only political fodder anyway. Did I say that?
 
My entire life I have heard that baseball is America's pastime which I never believed for that is the most boring game ever created in my humble opinion.  I now believe football has surpassed it but hey, who is counting!  My concern is that the American public's new pastime for our nation is doubting.  We doubt our long held beliefs.  We doubt the impact and implication of Scripture. We doubt anything held as "right" for in there somewhere there has to be something wrong. We doubt our societal values.  We doubt our leaders. We doubt our nation's capability. We doubt each other. We doubt our churches.  The list can do on but one that stands out to me is doubting the capability of the generation now in their twenties headed into adulthood.  Perhaps every generation does that looking at the oncoming generation but it seems more profound and prevalent with my generation looking at the generation of grandchildren in a world seemingly spinning totally off its axis.
 
A worrier I am not for those of you that know me.  A connector-of-dots I am which is propelled by this insatiable need to understand what is happening and why to see what the image on the horizon will be and how it will function.  I am sure my heart is more acutely linked to this in having been so widely exposed to over seven thousands college students over the last ten years.  Seeing them work, or not, struggle, hope, push, strive, or not, and to seek a piece of the action in their wage earning years was such a joy and such a physical and emotional challenge for me.I loved it! There are some of those students that no doubt have voodoo dolls with my face taped on it with needles inserted but they would be the ones that chose to occupy the 20% cave of not caring and not contributing. Most of them did not last very long in the environment within which I taught but assuredly they will spend a lifetime in that cave in the various endeavors they embark up in life unless theychoose to be their best; but some will not!
 
I realized a few years ago that each of us at some point come to this amazing reality; that you have more years behind you than you do in front of you. I am there and I know it and that is okay with me for I know in my heart that the best is yet to come long after this life is over. But while on this earth and this walk, the depth and degree of doubt that I see abounding is quite concerning to me for it presupposes a heavy ceiling of dark clouds hanging low over the landscape keeping the sunlight from shining clearly.  In that situation, one loses depth perception and a sense of direction. You feel a sense of being lost and few human emotions are worse than that feeling in life.
 
We have watched the fires of racism engulf the landscape and fueled by the angry voices of the MLK era seeking the "crown" he left it seems to me.  The voices tend to turn my ears and my heart off at the very mention of their name.  But what I have been more concerned about is the role of media versus the 1960s with the sound bytes, the 24/7 continuously starved news cycles, the "contributors" that tend to bring their own brand of gasoline to toss onto the fire instead of what news was designed to do, report the news and not pontificate and shape the message.  Walter Cronkite was considered the Master newsman for that very gem he brought.  We have no Mr. Cronkite me thinks!
 
Now we have too many former prosecutors, FBI directors, and acidic news anchors that seem to love to stir the pot instead of calm the pot. Don Lemmon, Jake Tapper, most of the lady talking heads, all seem bent on creating instead of reporting FACTS.  Nancy Grace is a great example of one that literally makes my eardrums peal so I will not listen to a syllable from her. There are many others. I know some like FOX, some like CNN, that would be me until lately, but my concern is simply, where do We the People get solid, credible, news upon which we can determine right and wrong? I honestly do not have a good answer. I think, hope, PBS comes close.
 
But to my point, I believe the tsunami of doubt that is rampant in our nation is rooted in We the People simply not investing enough time into seeking to understand what is happening around us.  I mean, think about it, when I watch hour after hour of police bashing, one would think that every police person in America goes to work shining his or her rounds readying to find the first available black person to shoot. Is that not crazy? YES, that is crazy but that is subliminal message being blasted from every angle. In the military we call it PSYOPS  .. psychological operations.!
 
We are a great nation but we do not act like a great nation.  We are a powerful nation but we do not act like a powerful nation. We are a nation of great leaders but I fail to see them anymore and I will go ahead and begin at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.  Great leaders would never allow this nation to fall to the depths where it appears America has fallen societally and otherwise.  Do we have a racial divide in this nation? Well, one would have to say from the news we have a mountain dividing this nation.  From the depths of my heart, I do not believe there is a mountain but media seems to love to build that mountain. Perhaps there is a mountain and I either too stupid or too blind to see it but I am neither stupid nor am I blind.
 
All I know to do about this new pastime is to pray and pray I do for our nation is sick regardless of the silly numbers. Lest we forget we owe more money than we earn in Gross Domestic Product which, for me, is the ONLY viable and thus concerning number. When you owe more than you make, somebody else determines your future; voila, that is America today!
 
I am not a doubter nor do I care to be around doubters but I sincerely feel there is is gray colored pall hanging over the nation, the greatest nation EVER created where fear and doubt abound. That begins with leadership for leaders carry the power of influence to change that.  Come on leaders, LEAD!

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