IN DEFENSE OF COMMON SENSE
By Hetty Gray
# 264
May 20, 2019
“Will we?”
Suffice it to say that it’s been a long time since I filed a column. In spite of the fact that topics surface every day deserving of a column (or two), I have waited because this is a column that is long overdue.
In the past, as readers, you know that my work presents a form tailored to you as readers, and not as I the columnist. I try very hard to incorporate factual background and historical context to topics that reflect current events, no matter how bizarre. And, in truth, some of them are very bizarre.
Religious rivalries and hatreds date back as far as the written or carved word. To hear the news reporters today, one would think that all this is new —- a phenomenon reflective of insensitivity and a ghastly term that defines all too many newscasts: tolerance.
One comment is overdue. We have forgotten how to see humor in anything. Our children are deprived of a good old-fashioned laugh. Life should be lived with a little levity. Troubles afflict each of us. Some are minor. Others are heavy and threaten to destroy us.
However, there is a quarter of solace and peace that has been removed from our schools. Is it any surprise that when schools banned God from their premises, Satan came in the door with both feet?
From seventh grade through high school a young men’s group called Hi-Y began our school day with a prayer. Nobody complained. Nobody protested. Words of wisdom came over the loud speaker and gave those of us who did not attend church a bit of guidance sorely missing from their lives.
It mattered not if our classmates were Protestant, Jewish, or Catholic. None of us questioned the worship of our peers. Most of us had homes with intact families, father… mother… perhaps one or more siblings. Since most of our parents had their children in their twenties, a great many of us had grandparents until we had our own children. School activities were five-day weeks with athletic events on Friday or Saturday nights. None were planned for Sunday. In fact, had someone suggested that in the 1940s or 1950s they would have been greeted with a hard, cold stare.
Just what did society do when it took the Lord away from our children? Listening to many young people today, the word “church” is roundly absent.
It is high time that believers of every stripe rose to the occasion and took a stand against Sunday games. A middle ground might be found in at least scheduling contests mid-afternoon so families could attend church together.
Satan is a force with which we must reckon. Active beyond our estimation, he wields tremendous force on impressionable people. He comes not with a foul smell or ugly appearance. Instead, he comes sweet smelling and flush with tempting goodies. He seems to offer everything and demand nothing. Yet that is not the case at all.
It is a joy that since President Reagan’s “….shining city on a hill,” we again have a spokesman in the White House. President Trump continues to remind us that we are all created by God. In a recent speech in Green Bay, Wisconsin, he remarked, “In America, we do not worship the government. We worship God.” If anything, we need more of that in daily discourse. When was the last time you heard the media (in any form) refer to religion unless it revolves around a shooting or some sort of vandalism?
Do not expect that those bent on taking down religion in America will wane in their efforts. Violence is on the increase. With no God in their lives, youngsters without direction and disgruntled men and women seek to inflict their power over others. Sometimes they use words and protest, full of expletives and opinions but absent of facts. They take center stage on newscasts. What better way to recruit others who have nothing in their lives that holds them to a higher calling? They are adrift.
An anchor exists. Few other than the Christian and Jewish programming networks address the fact that the country is at risk. Take heed of the Old Testament, common to both faiths. When a nation turned its back on God, the result was grim. Judging the current climate in American, we teeter on the cusp of disaster.
We are living in what can be, in a matter of years, a dark time for America. The popular culture is dangerous. No matter whether you are Christian or Jew, you place your life in the hands of God. In the Old Testament God made a covenant with the Jewish people. God does not renege on a promise.
The promise of the New Testament, through Jesus Christ, assures us that death has no power over us. Jews and Christians lead their lives looking forward to going to Heaven.
We have a life beyond this mortal one. Those of us reared in a church or synagogue have heard the word. To heed it is to life an upright, honest life and love one another.
Hatred casts a shadow over our country, a shadow that has a name. I close with phrases from the 23rd Psalm.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Note that the shadow has a name — death.
Please take the time to take your faith from your house of worship and into your community. Spreading the word need not be from a pulpit or a lectern. Spreading the word by example is priceless. Life your faith.
Satan, true to form, salivates at the prospect of Americans killing babies up to and including birth, ignoring the U. S. Constitution (authored by men of faith), condoning legalizing drugs that are far more potent than those proponents used in the 1960s, and offering free goodies to one and all.
The people of Bible times worked. They worked hard. Alms for the poor were common, but given to those infirm or elderly unable to work. The next year and a half will be awash with promises of freebies.
When I taught at the college level, I stressed one comment to my students. Socialism has never succeeded in any nation at any time. It robs workers of initiative by watering down achievement and assigning everyone the same compensation no matter the effort. It dissuades innovation and invention. It destroys. It does not build.
Margaret Thatcher’s words of July 7, 2009 come to mind: “The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”
Heed the verse of 2nd Timothy: 2 Timothy 4:7 – I have fought a good fight, I have finished [my] course, I have kept the faith. Will we? Think about it.