#1892 Texting, Tweeting, Trusting

#1892

Texting, Tweeting, Trusting

 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.  (Proverbs 3:5-6)

An experienced fisherman recognizes the pull on the line.  The course of true love never runs smooth.  There are generations of people, particularly in America, who let others speak for them, particularly in song lyrics, movie and television shows, letters to the editor, and especially radio talk shows.  

Every religion in the world blesses humility and the poor in spirit, those of us who were not winners of life's lottery, those whose candles burned out without ever making much of a glow, those girls who never wore a chastity belt BUT, unlike the caste system I saw in India there is no reason why all class should have disappeared in America...people who knew how to use utensils in eating, who knew how to dress when going to church or a funeral, people who sought knowledge for the sake of learning: who knew how to write thank you notes: who showed a rudimentary knowledge of manners.  This old, blind antiquarian-octogenarian remembers when men, when they still wore hats, would tip their hat at any female...lady or not.  I still remember wives, who would introduce their husbands as mister, children who showed manners at the table when eating out, above all, sons who would seat their mothers at the table and even in this day of liberated women, would open the car door for a member of the opposite sex or an elderly citizen.    

Why were we put on this planet, chosen by God for life, given "freewill" in our lifestyle?  Variety is the spice of life and God certainly wanted variety in those he chose to occupy his Earth.  Because of his writing in the "Lamb's Book of Life" he certainly knew that some would believe on him and some would not.  That a very few would have MENSA intelligence (MENSA founded in England a fraternity of the super intelligent), he knew that his perfect creation would not remain perfect...not with human beings.  He knew that some men and some women would prefer the hog pen...would not be bothered by wallowing around in filth, using rotten language-appreciating rotten music, with little ambition about anything.  However, he created everything that pleased him, along with man to manage what he had created.

In our spiritual relationship with God, we are tainted even there with inequalities...sacrosanct of not interfering with one's personal relationship with God. I cannot conceive of any human being not having a need for worship, honoring a power more sovereign than self.  What prophet is honored in his own country?  Most of us underestimate God's mercy.   Tainted by elitist media, that old refrain of family members, "What will people say?"  I found in my own thinking and exploring the thinking of others, that most of us put limits on self.  It is that rare human personality not tethered with a limiting chain who will explore everything...certainly books...certainly the sound waves of radio.  You can stay in the valley of mediocrity or climb the mountain of superiority, it is all in the mind, the choice is yours. 

Some convicts keep scrapbooks of their notorious exploits.  Some college professors keep scrapbooks of their academic attainments.  Some politicians keep scrapbooks of their rise in power, their political advertisements.  We spend too much time listening to ourselves and not enough time talking to ourselves...listening to why we should not do something, rather than telling ourselves we are capable of doing anything.  Every mother and grandmother keeps scrapbooks of her children...photographs as they mature.  How many parents, grandparents, tell their most precious possessions that life is mostly vanity?  How many fathers tell a son that "one man plus God and anything is possible"?  In my home, my mother, every time we went out "courting" or anything else, she would say, "Remember who you are."  Now, with a bottomless ocean of technology, wireless everything, texting, tweeting, teasing, why not instill within the minds of young people the phenomenon of trust? 

With all our warts, even rottenness, God requires from us just trust, nothing else.  I find that most of my fellow citizens, even at the church house, want God created in our image instead of us created in the image of God.  When one is created in the image of God, the holy spirit of Jesus in our mortal body, there is an overwhelming presence of peace and class.  What has happened to class...that presence of decency-modesty-self assurance?  I remember the time when customers dressed for air flight.  As one of my friends said recently, "The people who did ride buses now crowd airplanes."  I remember the time when people, even non-believers, wore their "Sunday best" when they went to church.  A pastor friend told me that many want to wear beach clothing shorts-flip flop-tank tops.  One boy came in his church carrying a "tin can" so he could spit his chewing tobacco.  Another said, a girl went on the platform to sing a special, wearing a mini skirt.  We know it happened at the schoolhouse, just entertainment and indoctrination.  Has it happened at the church house, just entertainment-laughing-clapping, educated musicians on the organ and piano replaced by just someone beating on a drum? 

Before the fall of Rome, the Circus Maximus, just entertainment...even if it meant lions chasing Christians.  In depressing Moscow, a destitute communist people, I went to their great circus...the only time I saw Russians laugh. 

This writer has lived most of his life in the solitary confinement of blindness; I can well imagine the hopelessness in the solitary confinement of prisoners.  THINK NOW IN MY LIFETIME, A SATANIC-PERVERTED MEDIA VIA THE TALKING BOX (TV) HAS LOWERED EVERYONE TO THE SAME MEDIOCRITY.  When watching or listening to the mediocrity pushed into our homes, do you not feel you are drowning?  There are no cultured thoughts in homosexual behavior, ugly-coarse language, and sexual innuendos.  Your writer is blind but knows full well that relationships with everything ignite in the eye.  In speaking to a Southern Baptist convention long ago, I said, "If Satan had wanted to invent something to make mankind just as mean-evil as possible, he would have invented a television set."  Perhaps, even worse, the computer...every wicked porno shop attraction, right in your own living room. 

I do not worship a part-time lord and I do not serve him on a part-time basis.  I have failed him so many times but he has never failed me.  But, I must beg everyday for him to give me class.  We have all heard of art nouveau, art that does not make much sense.  Now, we have trash nouveau, up to our ankles with satanic manure that does not make any sense.  There is no class in the hog pen.  Thank God I lived at a time, at least part of my life, in spite of skin color, ancestry, limitations of one kind or another, I knew people with class, showed their class in spite of what goes on in the world. 

For many years I owned a very fine apartment on the eastside of New York City...near the United Nations.  Because of my world travel, etc I was invited to many receptions.  One USA-UN official was a black man from Georgia like me, raised in the South at a time of segregation-Jim Crow.  He said, "I came from a family of black people with class, poor but decent, minority but at peace with the majority.  My grandmother, wife of a black physician would say to me, 'Don't ever forget who you are, if you get out and get into a mess and get hauled off downtown to the jail, don't expect us to come downtown to get you.'"  We have seen the lack of class even at the White House, the 42nd president who will go down in history for his antics-perversions in the Oval Office.  Power and money do not provide class, it starts in the mind, and it shows up in every action.