#1922 Merriment and Mystery

#1922

Merriment and Mystery

"Paul Revere’s Ride" - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

Listen, my children, and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:

Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year....

So through the night rode Paul Revere;

And so through the night went his cry of alarm

To every Middlesex village and farm,--

A cry of defiance, and not of fear,

A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,

And a word that shall echo forevermore!

For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,

Through all our history, to the last,

In the hour of darkness and peril and need,

The people will waken and listen to hear

The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,

And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

We are sick and tired of being sick and tired.  There are not many things in life we have control over.  No matter how many vehicle accidents we pass by, "it is not going to happen to me."  No matter how many times we hear the fire truck-ambulance, "it is not going to happen to me."  Last year, Americans spent $1.5 trillion dollars on "sick care".  The more money we spend on doctors and at drug stores, the sicker we get.  In this article, I want to discuss mysteries, which I want someone to explain to me. 

We live in a nation of merriment, as was the case with the Roman Empire, before it fell, the powerbrokers-politicians-ruling class making sure, the working class kept their minds free of their actual problems.  This was the reason for the building of Circus Maximus, still standing, seating one hundred fifty thousand spectators.  (Seating more than most modern arenas.)  Can we even imagine such at that time in history?  But just think, even before that extravaganza, the great walls around Babylon, walls although high, so wide, that chariot races took place on them.  The mystery of the ages, that most of the world's population was slaves even when Jesus walked the Earth, that man cannot determine his future...what is happening to him.  Most people are just content to be pawns of others, just as long as there is enough merriment in their existence to make life tolerable.  Who do our politicians, so-called leaders, think they are fooling?  And, it is a mystery to a few, that we will have a President Trump.  Many people are tired of criminals...another mystery, those with the supposed education, should have figured it out but those with the money, education, talent are the victims.  For example, one of my friends has a son who is student at NC State University, after the Trump win, the female professor came into the classroom, having evidently suffered all night, she was still in tears, told her class they should sign up as having attended but she was unable to lecture that day, she could not recover from Trump winning the election.  And to think, that we as taxpayers are paying for such mediocrity at a state tax supported university.  I understand there were actually grief counselors at many universities to accommodate academic types (students and professors) who could not accept the elected winner...choice of the Electoral College. 

Work of any type is a calling.  We are not stuck where we start but I am so thankful that I grew up knowing the honor of hard work.  I saw hardworking parents, grandparents, relatives, neighbors.  Of course, this was before the time of television, national addiction to sports and sports teams.  Today's world, grown men and women taking every holiday possible to sit around in la-z-boys and watch millionaires play ball.  Government workers, college professors, even school teachers and pastors use every excuse for a holiday.  It sickens me when I hear a preacher talk about taking Monday off because he preached for thirty minutes on Sunday.  The great preacher, George Whitfield, preached four sermons everyday, travelling place to place by horseback.  He preached to thousands in every state, it is believed that eighty-percent of the American colonials heard him speak.  The people who heard him speak, mostly farmers, knew that livestock must be fed everyday and the cow must be milked everyday.  I never knew my parents to take off any day...even Christmas.  Ours was not a world of merriment-entertainment.

The mystery of the ages, for people with nominal intelligence; people who can read and write, how and why you spend the few years you have on this Earth, and in so many cases very limited years.  (There are as many short graves as long graves in the graveyard.)  Not busy doing the work which God placed us here to do, but finding excuses for laxness-merriment.  Then, at life's end, whether you are a young corpse or an old one (dead is dead) to spend a very certain eternity in splendor or in horror.  So many mysteries as we study actions of men...supposed concerns for souls, supposed concerns for health-welfare of others.  It is much like President Obama who wanted to do so much for his race and country...yet, spends most of his time on the golf course.  It is like the church, so concerned about heathen in foreign lands.  But when these heathen come to this country to find jobs and work, an example of real family life, these heathen, send back to their families six hundred billion dollars from their pay (more money than is given in foreign aid by all countries).  Another mystery, needing interpretation, iconography, figures and paintings of religious types, as with merriment, we expect some response, some comfort from these idols.  It is time to realize that mystery in all things lies within the human heart, the greatest distance on Earth, the fourteen inches between your heart and your brain.