A few weeks back Chinook helicopters were doing high
altitude training exercises in our area. One resident complained to elected
officials because of the noise and she also had safety concerns because the
helicopters were flying so close to her home.
Fast forward to last week and the devastating floods on
Colorado’s front range. What I find interesting is the training that was going
on in our backyard is now bearing fruit as Chinook helicopters are the only
means of rescuing hundreds stranded people from the flood waters.
I see a
reverse of this situation with the prophet Jonah. A vine, which once had shaded
Jonah from the blazing sun, withered and died. Jonah was angry and more
concerned about the plant dying than he was about the people of Nineveh
perishing. The Lord’s perspective is quite different when he tells Jonah, “You have been concerned about this vine,
though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died
overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty
thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many
cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?” (Jonah
4:10-11 NIV)
1 comment:
Gail;
-----If the plant had not given Jonah shade from the pounding sun, he would not have given a rip about its withering. Jonah was only two or three steps from being a Balaam. He was extraordinarily concerned about his own well being all the way through the story.
-----It is this concern for our own well being that shades our eyes from discerning even the being of others. Some people who have no intentions whatsoever to hurt others devastate anyone within any pathway to what they need.
-----Even concern for the well being of others does not necessarily preclude their working destruction. These “caring” people indeed have emotional factors of empathy. But their minds are too small to carry also the smart factors of it. Self-concern is so intricate that, although it is overcome enough to desire good for others, it might not yet be overcome enough to understand another's right to define what is good for himself. And still, the mindless do-gooder will never ask what those definitions might be, because he doesn’t care. He thinks his own are the only.
-----I commented to Char when those choppers were hovering around, not about their noise and risk, but about their surveillance and spying. That's what a government does when it thinks its own are the only. But, I was more sure than not that my suspicions were ridiculous. So, I figured they were practicing for the day we all needed to be rounded up into FEMA camps. That's what a government completely lacking empathy does. And yet, I faintly admitted they were training to protect us folks, at least as much as protecting themselves, anyhow.
-----Funny how self-concern warps the mind. I didn’t even connect my memories of the chopper training with the recent rescues in Boulder. And although my mind wanted to acknowledge their good intentions, my sensitivity to our government's being full of senseless do-gooders unsettled my nerves too much to delve into what my mind was willing to admit.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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