November 30, 2009
Black Friday
As a little girl my Grandma would look through the Sears & Roebucks sales catalog and show her daddy things the family could save money on if they would just place an order. Impoverished, Granddad Reed always responded, “Honey…they’ll always be another sale.” Personally I’m more of a ‘needs-shopper’, but I’ve noticed that this year the economists and the government are trying to make me feel guilty for not doing my part to bolster the economy. But I have to say I’m really not in need and Jesus is right, “…for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” (Matt 6:8 ESV)
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Gail;
-----I think your Great-Granddad was right, there has always been another sale. And even at normal prices our necessities have been so easy to earn we have had money left for comforts. Even the poor have lived better here than most folks around the world, regardless of their complaining. Moreover, those poor who refused to complain, but instead worked hard, found themselves well to do, at least, and sometimes wealthy. For more than having been a land of bounty, America was a land of opportunity.
-----The freedom to succeed and to fail were on deep sale for sixty-four years. Yes, its price was on the rise through the first three-and-a-half decades of the twentieth century, but thanks to God, we were willing to pay that price during the fourth decade. Nor did we then stop investing in freedom. The Civil Rights Movement and the youth rebellion of the sixties purchased another giant chunk of it, followed quickly by Women’s Liberation, the right to abortion, Gay rights, and a big surge in freedom from God through the mislabeled “separation of church and state”.
-----In fact, the growth of our prosperity, opportunities, and individual freedoms was so vivacious that your Grandmother was also right. There was bound to come an inflation so hot in some sector of the market that it might topple the whole of America’s greatness. This inflationary pressure indeed began in the early sixties, too, as the truth gradually became more expensive. No longer were Americans tapped into each other over their back fences and at church socials. Television was bringing the world of entertainment and information to their fingertips right in their living rooms. By the end of the decade, journalists and entertainers alike fully realized TV’s usefulness in transforming public opinion. The advise of Christian leaders on moral broadcasting standards was no longer sought. Misinformation, deceit, and moral perversion became cheap and abundant, while anyone interested in unabashed truth or godliness labored hard to find just a bit.
-----Then came cheap politicians bathing in this sea of perversion and deceit to run a sting on your individual freedoms. The envy of the poor was groomed and fanned into hot flames of impunity against the freedom to become wealthy, called greed. Environmental scares were copiously mixed into the bait, with generous portions of racist fears, sexist fears, and a constant belittling of Christian values, until the bait recipe was finally cooked and ready for last year’s switch. With the gold of truth so scarce, the same kind of totalitarians we defeated sixty-four years earlier convinced us to switch our reliance on God to reliance on their state for the fixing of all these fears. Now we must spend all we have to buy the gold of truth and share it generously with our neighbors. Even so, it may not be enough to avert this sting. But let that be a lesson, and buy the Lamb’s gold anyway. For it will certainly avert the eternal sting.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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