Welcome, God and All...
Whoa...have I missed something since the Super Bowl?
My last two entries were purposely internal. I made some references to events affecting me, seemingly more local than global. I needed to have these internal "conversations" because for a moment, I had become unsure of my bearings. Even so, coming out of them I had forgotten that "you can't believe everything you see and only half of what you read." A strong foundation in faith and core beliefs is necessary, and mine needed some shoring up.
Are we at war in the Middle East, or aren't we?
I honestly believe this wasn't thought through before it was executed. Just because our military picked off what they believed were small boats smuggling fentanyl into the US of A, and made an overnight raid into Venezuela toppling the Maduro regime, did anyone realize that the same strategy was not going to work in Iran? Well, there may have been one or two military experts who did see flaws in the strategy. They have since joined the ranks of the unemployed.
It's one heckuva way to prep for celebrating the 250th anniversary of our declaring independence from the tyranny of the British Empire. A significant number of citizens here in the States have this very cocky attitude. We've had it all along, but somewhere around 2015 it started to become obvious. Now it's taken center stage, making a full, hard sprint toward Independence Day, the November mid-term elections, and oblivion.
And somewhere in the midst of all this, there exists a great fog of contradiction.
When Our Lord Jesus Christ (mine, anyway) departed Earth, having completed all He had been sent to do, it had to pretty obvious to His Apostles and disciples that there would be great risk in resetting the spiritual narrative. They were indeed a minority even in the Upper Room, Galilee, Capernaum, Jerusalem, or wherever the story says they were. Changing minds was one thing. Changing hearts was quite another. Eleven apostles grew to fourteen (Matthias, Paul, and Barnabas are all considered apostles), and all but one - John, the 'beloved disciple' - would die as martyrs fighting an uphill battle.
The Cause would win out, growing exponentially, but not without having to define where it stood on great theological issues. Jesus' divinity vs. his humanity, the inclusion of Gentile converts, even the validity of Jewish law were debated, considered, and decided upon.
Which brings me to a sidebar. Have we always considered the 'nation' of Israel as permanent in its biblical state? Within the lifetime of many of the Apostles (especially John), Jerusalem was sacked by the Roman Empire in AD 70, finally tired of a sense of tyranny (from a Roman standpoint). Another diaspora took place. Israel, in the biblical sense, was wiped off the map.
If God's Chosen People from Abraham's time were nothing else, they were nomadic. They always appeared to be on the move, on the run from oppressors. While there were periods in history where it seemed they had settled down, they always saw Jerusalem as their spiritual home. But about a hundred years ago, their descendants were on the move again, many emigrating to the United States, others concentrating in Eastern Europe. Then came the Holocaust of World War II. An estimated six million Jews were exterminated. Only when American and Allied forces united were the Axis regimes overthrown, and the peace process began.
With the tremendous loss of life, somehow in the course of deliberating reparations the nation-state of Israel was formed in 1948. That is the Israel of today. While many would like to believe that this would bring stability and peace to the region, it has brought anything but that. While sharing the name of its great ancestor, it has brought increased hostility, animosity, distrust, and yes, war - on more than one occasion.
While the migration of Jewish people to the United States was significant, they were invariably treated much like every ethnic group that has come here. First with wariness, followed by dislike to outright hatred, but accepted when the next migratory group showed up. This is likely because, as the British colonies were settled and growing prior to 1776, the original settlers were escaping religious intolerance in England and elsewhere in Europe; and they brought all their dislikes and prejudices with them. I believe there was heavy leaning on Old Testament philosophy. Colonization mushroomed through conquest, with the newcomers' believing that God had divinely ordained that this newly promised land would be theirs to subdue and to dwell in.
That philosophy has never quite left the North American continent. The US of A, by conquest, would stretch "from sea to shining sea." It would not consider easily seeing Christ in those whose lands they would acquire; nor would it truly welcome newcomers who were not made by God in their image and likeness.
Now it has become the national paranoia. Through corrupt politics, fearmongering, the continual fracturing of the Christian people; and this spiritual pandemic of superiority we find ourselves in an unsanctioned war we didn't want with no clear path out. We have elected representatives with only enough backbone to be rendered ineffective. Our president idolizes the regimes of places like China, Russia, and North Korea, and presumes he is a member of that elite ruling class; but fewer and fewer people in the States and indeed around the world are buying that. Efforts to make this known diplomatically from the King of England to the Premier of China to the President of Russia, are being ignored.
Still, here we are on the cusp of that 250th anniversary. American culture will be celebrated and put on display. I dare say it will all be disliked by one group or another. (LBGTQIA++) Pride month is a fortnight away. We just featured a continuous reading of the KJV Bible, held a National Day of Prayer, and are prepping for a major Christian prayer festival to rededicate the nation to God, sanctioned by a government that really doesn't understand Him at all. Invoking that our will be God's will, almost defiantly; conveniently forgetting that in creating this nation, our forefathers may have agreed on Christian moral principles but did not want to identify the new United States of America with any deity, real or perceived.
I have no doubt that my country's citizens should use this time to reflect on their personal beliefs and values. Do they make sense in a world where the knowledge of critical events is nearly instantaneous? What kind of nation do we want to be? Is it becoming a probability that We the People must rise up and unite against the powers that would appear to be doing the opposite? In the pluralistic society that we are, are we willing to believe that we still have One God who hears our pleas? Or will the American Experiment, as Benjamin Franklin called it, become lost?
Until we meet again, may God be with you...and may God have mercy on us all...
+the Phoenix
