Shut Down . . . or Melt Down . . . October 1, 2013

A new Federal Fiscal Year began Tuesday morning, October 1st . . . and instead of opening for business, a sign was put in the window saying, “Closed for Business” and our employees were sent back home.

Once again, our elected officials have embarrassed us . . . failed us . . . brought shame upon the offices they hold . . . and they have brought into question once again the issue of integrity, or the lack thereof, in our political system.  Regardless of where one stands on the issues, it is just obvious this mess was never the intention of our founders.  It seems pretty clear this morning that there are 447 people in D.C. about whom the following can be said:

  1. They don’t have a clue what they are doing;
  2. They don’t like each other very much;
  3. They have no respect for the American people and the people’s government; and
  4. They literally, seem to have forgotten who sent them to D. C. and why they were sent.

I have read reports that this won’t actually affect the average American very much, but I would argue that it does, indeed, hurt the average American . . . and it hurts America!

It hurts in the same way that it hurts for a child to hear his or her parent tell a lie.  It simply sets a poor example and sends the wrong message.  The message it sends is a message of “us” and “them”; a message that it is ok to not work together for what is right; a message that says “the opinion of the representative is more important than representing the one who sent you.”

So, what is right and what is wrong in the Washington battle?  There are a number of things that can be entered on each side of the ledger sheet.  Here are some examples:

Under the heading of Good:

It is good that people are free to elect their own representatives; and

It is good that elected representatives would seek to do good (well) for the citizenship (help the poor).

Under the heading of Bad:

It is bad that an electorate would elect unqualified representatives and do so simply because of superficial issues; and

It is bad when a representative government seeks to impose its own value system of right and wrong onto the citizenship and then announces to the citizenship what is good for it, yet then exempt itself from that very thing it has imposed on the people.

There are some serious inequities in all of this.  The members of Congress (435) and members of the Senate (100) are paid $174,000 each per year, which is far above the annual income of the average citizen (they approved their own salaries).  The members of Congress and the Senate get the same salary, regardless of how well or how poorly he or she performs the job.  Moreover, these representatives have given themselves these salaries for life . . . regardless of how long they hold the elected office.  

The central element of the current debate which has caused the current budget impasse, political gridlock, and forced this government shutdown/meltdown is the new health-care program being called Obamacare.  Is Obamacare a good thing . . . or is it a bad thing?  I honestly don’t know, nor do I know anyone who does know the truth.  I know there are a bunch of folks on both sides of this thing . . . but not one of them knows the truth about it yet.

I do know there are some things said to be included in it that frighten a bunch of people . . . and those things can be made to sound frightening for many of us.  But, then, it depends on where one stands that dictates what one sees.  I think the greatest resentment is not the new health care law, itself, in as much as it is the manner by which it was passed into law.

I do know that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has gone to great lengths to prevent Obamacare from being implemented, and I think that I even understand why they have. Yet, the truth is that they challenged the issue in the Supreme Court, and lost, and this is like the 45th time they have voted to kill the law.  It is what it is . . . accept it and get to the people’s business.  If it proves to be as bad as you have been telling us it is, you won’t have any trouble getting the support to repeal it in the future.

As maddening as it all is, in truth it is just another example of how we as people can behave in pretty much every area of life.  Historically, we have certainly shown that we can divide ourselves into a bunch of different ways and into a bunch of different groups . . . by economic status, political affiliations, race, color, creed, gender, and religion.

Our peculiarities about religion can become as confusing and complex as they do over politics, and that is beyond sad.  Politics, by its very nature, is designed to divide and separate people. The word politics takes its grammatical root at the same place as do these words:

Polarize—to cause to concentrate about two conflicting or contrasting positions

Polarity—the possession or manifestation of two opposing attributes, tendencies, or principles

But, it ought not ever be so in religion . . . because the purpose of religion should never be fear based or division . . . but rather about love, redemption, peace with God, and peace with others. Of course, the reply is that each denomination holds its own doctrinal beliefs, and that is where the struggle comes in.  That sounds quaint, but the truth is it is error.  The truth is that there is only one “right” and it is not a relative thing.  There is only one Creator . . . and He only created us for one reason . . . to live in relationship with Him.  Sin became an issue between The Holy Creator and His sinful creation.  But, He made a way to bridge that gap . . . and there is only one way!  Any religious structure or system that cannot show a person that truth and that one way is simply a waste of effort and becomes like polarity.

Even sadder, that same division occurs within Churches and happens over things such as music, style of worship, how much of the culture is reflected in the Church and worship, etc.  It is present in our local Churches, but it ought not be so!  The problems always show up when folks start wanting their own way about things . . .

I read a brilliant illustration this morning, and it brought some comfort to my heart and mind in the midst of the divided world in which we find ourselves.  

Here it is: If you stood a group of people around the walls in a room and you asked them to become unified, confusion would likely result.  But imagine that you set a chair in the middle of the room and asked them to walk toward it – the closer they came to the chair, the closer they would come to one another . . .

Now, imagine that chair was a throne, and God sat upon it . . .

It Seems to Me . . . that mindset could fix a bunch of stuff!

 

 


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