Life Matters - August 17, 2022
I have those times when I feel like I can feel for Rip Van Winkle. Not the laziness of course! Nor the hen-pecked disposition of himself and his dog! Though I may or may not have had those times when distance became more desirable than discourse… however that may be, my wife and I have now been married 40, going on 41, years and most of that time “happily ever after.” As for Rip, remember how the guy, on one of his roaming, hunting, or in his shirking of duty, to get away from his wife, (a possibility teased by the author) jaunts to the Catskill Mountains, not far from the mighty Hudson, was hailed by another wayfarer, dressed as a Dutchman and older in years, who offered to Rip a drink from a flask at his side? How Rip, after many a lengthy draught from the flask and overcome with drowsiness, sank into a deep sleep on a grassy knoll, in hidden glen deep in the Catskills.
The way I feel like I can feel for Rip is how he awoke to a confusion of changes after 20 years of sleep, which felt to him as one night. The changes over the past 20 years feel as an exercise in “fast forward” to this staid and steady Deutscha. At least “staid” and “Deutsch,” the “steady” may be up for debate! Whatever the case may be about myself, however, the massive volume of changes in the past two decades are, without controversy, bringing about a massive shift in the way people work, relate, and generally do life, such as the world has never known. While the world seemed as shrinking to my grandparents from the latter part of the 1800s to the 1970s—and for sure to my dat (dad) and mam (mom) from 1920 and 1922 to 2006 and 2011 respectively—no generation has seen the orb we live on “shrink” as fast or as much as my generation has from 1960 to now, and especially in the last two decades. Not all bad, but certainly, not all good. Not all bad because the Gospel of Jesus Christ can now literally travel at the speed of light. Not all good because materialism, perversions, yea, all manner of naked evil, perverse to the Law of God, can travel at that speed as well. Fiber-optics have sped up the dissemination of information via in-ground cable, while better satellites, transmission towers and receiving devices have created faster communications and higher definition pictures through the air. It all comes at a cost. As high-speed internet diffuses distance it also diffuses a fruit of the Spirit called temperance, opening the door to many and varied temptations, including but not limited to waste-of-time surfing, compulsive coveting, compulsive gaming, compulsive shopping far from home, immoralities of all kinds, dangerous meeting arrangements, etc. even the spiritually strong need some checks and balances, some controls and accountability. Lest we get used to things we should never get used to. Many have been stirring out of the unprepared sluggishness defaulted to at the beginning of this digital “explosion,” or “4th Industrial Revolution,” if you will, to supplying the need for checks and balances. ITC has a program called Blast Wi-Fi and my “better half” and I can attest that it works well. We need this. I need it. Somehow, we tend to think of ourselves as the exception, but the downward progression of mankind is still natural, as it always has been, since that first fall into sin in the Garden of Eden. We need to keep our conscience clean and clear by the “washing of the water by the word.” (Eph. 5:26 and Titus 3:5) if not;
*First, we overlook evil
*Then we permit evil
*Then we promote evil
*Then we celebrate evil
*Then we persecute those who still call it evil
Unless the present administration gets voted out of office, they are entering into the “persecute” phase. Or, unless God intervenes in a way that I don’t see. Which is very possible, as the view from my window is quite limited. Hindsight is 20/20 however, the Bible and church history are clear that the church of Jesus Christ has always thrived in the dunged and worked up soil of persecution. May the “Rip” and all others thrive. In the Church of Jesus Christ.
Life Matters!