Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Shade Tree Wisdom 3/3/10

Nice walking, birds chirping, and my faithful companion appeared for a bit again. He found no untoward stuff in the bushes so he meandered back home. In this age when one reads of joggers killed and buried on a lonely beach front that dog is sort of a warm, and welcome, presence.

What’s happening to our world? There seems to be a spirit of meanness, of unrest, floating about. Is it just that columnists need to fill up space and editors accept anything offered to them, or is this the spirit of this age?

Where have good manners, a simple “thank you”, or a “please” gone? They seem to missing. I was thinking of all this today and then read something in "Dear Abby” about holding the door for a lady. One sophomore held the door for a lady burdened with three bags of groceries, and she (the article uses stridently) said, “Listen, Sonny, I can handle the door myself”. He replied softly, “I’m sorry, I’ll excuse your rudeness if you’ll forgive my courtesy”.

As an aside, I notice at Church, and I do it quite often, simply hold the door for people approaching the entrance, instead of leaving it shut just before they arrive. No one has yet to snarl about that, they usually smile and offer a quiet good morning, or simply, “thanks”. By the way, I notice that the youngsters waiting for their bus ride give me a ‘good morning, sir’.

One writer characterizes it so, “The sickness of our age is we have fit bodies but flaccid minds and vacant souls.” Biblical knowledge is lacking, and there is a blurring of right and wrong. There is a movement away from a wholesome standard of morality to an undisciplined emphasis on tolerance which accepts anything because you accept it.

Taking a stand on what Scripture teaches makes you out as ‘old-fashioned’ or simply being intolerant. We have replaced common sense with political correctness.

Witness, for example, Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning holds a vote because we need to have the means to fund his bill, and he is derided as standing in the way of “feeding hungry mouths” and “withholding needed funds for living”. [as an aside, where was the outcry when they voted nearly 19 billion in ear marked funds in 2009 for ‘pork barrel projects’?]

We are so easily swept along by the culture we live in, so it is imperative that we first study the Scriptures for wisdom, for direction, for guidance, and for that sure word that is ever true.

“Thy Word is a lamp for my feet, a light for my path”. Psalm 119.105.

GPD 3/3/10

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