#1865 Sedition and Machinations

#1865

Sedition and Machinations

"America" Bebe Winans

     My country, ' tis of thee,
     Sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing;
     Land where my fathers died,
     Land of the pilgrims' pride,
     From every mountainside let freedom ring!

I can't shake the chill in my bones, my country turning to ash.  Actor Gene Wilder, who died yesterday, great movie actor-wonderful movies said,  "I like the show but I don't like show business."  This old blind veteran, talking with many citizens my age, especially veterans, "We love our country but despise it's government." 

Right now, we are going through the worst scene one can imagine when a democratic republic elects a president.  At 86, I remember F.D.R., Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, and I try not to think about Obama.  We know that Clinton is a crook, that Trump is scary.  Who can do the worst?  We must begin by calculating consequences.  Forget the camouflage of political correctness, a lying-conniving news media, power brokers, and opinion molders...mostly at universities and places where they should know better...who long ago sold their souls to the devil.  Forget the camouflage of costumes, men in suits-degrees hanging on their walls, whores to the highest bidder:  God's superstars, god-like voyeurs whose self anointed omniscience has come at such a great cost.  I find that most politicians were just interneting fraternity boys, hounds of sports, chasers of small white balls, not knowing how tough it is and was to serve in the military.

Such a great nation-such a powerful country we have achieved so much, come so far.  This world traveler has covered every continent; enjoyed talking with people.  Years ago, all surely had nothing but praise for America, did not even recognize our warts.

Solitude and squalor are the parents of violence.  The Feds cruised and crushed to pile people in big cities, where violence festers.  This year, twenty first century, 459 human-beings killed in the city of the Chicago.  American lives are controlled by laws and restrictions, permits and license.  Yet, pet foods dangerous with pesticides, just one important life saving drug, epi pen (epinephrine) doubles in price, one year.  We are not prepared for cyber attacks, loss of the electric grid.  One sweet lady said to me, "If the terrorists cause me to lose my electric power I will just go to McDonald's." 

This writer was raised on a large farm where his father and his father were raised before him.  We had hundreds of acres of just woodland.  I so remember, far from our house, deep in the woods, there was one ancient oak tree, so large, so healthy, such a great canopy.  I will never understand why my father decided to cut down that tree.  This was before the time of power saws, perhaps he was waiting for his oldest son to help him cut it down with a cross cut saw.  Now you cut down any tree by looking at the top and seeing which side contains more limbs, with your ax, you put your slash-opening on that side for the tree to fall.  Then, starting on the opposite side you saw the tree down.  It took a long time.  We harvested much oak wood to heat the house.  We used pine wood for the kitchen wood cook stove.  Our nation, so large-so proud-so developed now being cut down.

There are three types of work, people who make things, people who buy and sell things, and those who are just involved in the logistics-statistics of the other two.  Reading American history and me living a large part of it, it is almost impossible to believe that this nation, so totally different has made such great accomplishments physically, socially, spiritually.  Most of you have good eyes-ears-sensitivity, can't you understand what is happening?

My one son played football in high school, he is now a PhD seminary professor after having served on the SBC foreign mission field.  After returning home from the mission field, he wanted his two sons, my only two grandchildren to go to a real-live football game.  They went to a Memphis, TN large high school game.  One team, from a Christian school was playing a large secular high school.  He and his sons sat with the fans of the Christian school, on the other side of the field were the secular high school fans, he said, "You could not believe the difference in attitudes-voices-language coming from the secular side of the field."  All those Christian fans, those who used acceptable English-grammar-attitudes were embarrassed by what came across the field.

In the kaleidoscope of liberty, most of us just want opportunity.  We resent the attitude of welfare.  We claim the tried and true attitude of work-worth-worship.  Work is the highest form of worship and the human-being is anxious to demonstrate his worth in his work.  Americans sent most Christian missionaries to the world, built great universities and libraries, established great educational and scientific foundations.  Some of the greatest  names in our history, men and women who gave away fortunes, men and women who worked and studied for years to bring great discoveries to the world.  We are truly a great super power...a great oak tree.  Our sustenance like that of the great tree is gained from the elements God placed in the good earth that we must have.  Either from the plants feasting on the elements or animals feasting on the plants.  We believe that God is not ready to give up on America.