HOW CAN HE SLEEP WHEN THE WHOLE WORLD IS GOING TO RACK AND RUIN?
At least that is what I would say if I were the dog. Is anybody else out there besides the beagle (and the author) actually losing sleep over the tempest, tumult, and tyranny that defines our collective life at this moment?
Our leaders keep telling us that our economy has been hijacked by some bad, but nebulously described men, and then we find out that if the government were a person, he would find himself as the lead story on the reality show, "Stupid Criminals". As they use credit, hastily printed "pretend" money, China, and other slick measures to spend, spend, spend, one might notice a similarity between our leaders and that other genius, the Philadelphia mom who claimed she had been kidnapped and was calling 911 from the trunk of her car, when all the time she was living it up at Disney World (she, also, having appropriated other people's money so to do).
I heard the first couple are on a date tonight, having a lovely dinner and taking in a Broadway show.
Meanwhile the Russians are lecturing us about our astonishingly swift descent into Marxism, whilst tiny little dictators in terribly bad suits continue to enrich uranium, shoot off nuclear test missiles, and shake their defiant little fists at us - and no, I am not talking about the children right now.
There is so much else that has gone wrong, that the aforementioned makes up but the icy tip of the iceberg of Woe, which itself looms ever larger since all the other icebergs are melting as I write this!
So how has it come to this? The Lord, in His usual, pithy style, gives us a hint when He tells His listeners, "No man can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house." Ahh, someone slipped in and bound the strong man. And he didn't notice.
Well, I guess someone is a really sound sleeper!
What's a strong man like you, America, doing in a place like this?
How did you let yourself get all tied up, and not put up a fight?
Will you go gently into that good night?
(Because, I mean, that night is really not such a good one.)
Perhaps we have been too naively negligent of our own freedom, good-naturedly trusting it to hirelings. Intellectual honesty requires scrutiny and that's hard work, so we've been a little less discerning than is prudent. Perhaps the pleasures, the pizza and the perversion have distracted us as they tied us up in knots. The nature of vice is always to turn vicious after a while. Self-indulgence, abandonment of duty, and tolerance for its own sake tend to trigger an autoimmune disease of the soul, leading it into the snare of dependency and then to dissolution.
So what should we do? Well, to start with, wake up.
Wake UP!! Daylight is waning and the light is surely going out in the West. Jesus said, "I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work."
So earnestly do your work, whether it is running a business or cleaning a toilet, wiping out crime or wiping a child's nose. But be awake while it is yet day, speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, and talk of the pure, lovely, great and true things to your young ones, and to anyone who will listen. Be constant in season and out of season.
Refuse to be branded by other people's value judgments, and stand your ground. Nobody gets to earth by accident, it is God's will that you are here, born for such a time as this. Pray for the mind of Christ, be filled with the Holy Spirit, and speak the truth in love. Always, always speak the truth, before truth is silenced by those inconvenienced by it!
You know, as much as foundations seem to be shaking, I was undone by one small thing today.
My lovely husband, Bob The Garden Killer, struck again this afternoon. Seems he thought I told him to go out back and mow down my parsley and dill patch. I was out there this evening tending to something else when I caught the zesty fragrance of FRESHLY CUT DILL!!!!!!!!!!
I looked over at the patch. At first I was stunned, then somewhat cutting, myself, when I found him. Then despair set in. This kind of thing seems to happen with relentless, seasonal regularity.
Well, I've never been one to sensibly accept the inevitable, so I made an executive decision. I will go right back out there and plant some more seeds. And so should you. If the sun comes up again for you tomorrow, take that as confirmation that you are to get back out there and produce something beautiful and useful.
While it is yet day.
