the Russians are coming…

Russia is a riddle
wrapped in a mystery
inside an enigma.

Winston Churchill

The Russians are coming, The Russians are coming….
is the title of a 1966 comedic spoof based on the accidental beaching of a Russian sub
off the coast of a small fictional New England island town during the midst
of the Cold War.
The film stared Alan Arkin and Carl Reiner so you can only imagine the off the chain humor.

Fast forwarding all these many years later and history oddly seems to be repeating itself,
but this time it’s not over a comedic movie yet we can still hear that familiar war cry…
that the Russians are coming…

I’ve really tried, really really I have tried, to ignore the latest brouhaha concerning
Mother Russia and all things Russian…
all the latest “did they, didn’t they” sort of mumbo jumbo that is currently consuming all
things political and newsy.

I’ve really tried to tune out all things ‘news’ related since hysterical pandemonium
hit the airwaves following the election…

All because global news media are still having apoplexies following the US election,
all because the US simply elected another new president….
as in its something we’ve gotten pretty good at doing every 4 years…
Yet oddly this time, this process, this election…
although it was one that seemed to follow the same standard procedure of every other
election since General Washington’s election, has been anything but standard…
and I for one have grown weary of the now ensuing melee.

The conspiracy theorists on both sides of “this trouble” have whipped themselves
into such a frenzy that I’ve sadly found it all so very exhausting.

While the question remains, exhausting for what?

Has all this focus, frenzy and fuss made the world a better place?

Has world hunger been eradicated?
Are children no longer dying due to starvation or from treatable diseases?
Have we discovered the cure for cancer?
Have all the global conflicts and wars finally ended peacefully?

No?

No, I didin’t think so…

But rather than focusing on doing things to make living better for people…
easier, happier….
we’ve all decided to lose our minds and go nuts over a president half the population hates
and the notion of invading Russians from within the highest ranks of government.
Forget that kids are dying from starvation in the Sudan as I type.
Forget that airstrikes are raging in Syria as I type.
Forget the growing opiate addictions in this country.
Forget the widening global human sex trafficking nightmare….
Forget global terrorism.
Forget escalating violence.
Forget that half the United States now hates the other half….
Forget anything regarding the relevance of improving the suffering of humanity…
but rather, focus on collusion and intrigue….

Obviously according to the news, none of that humanity stuff matters and actually pales
in comparison to all things Trump and Russian.

The Russians, bless their hearts, all they have to do each morning is to wake up and
stare in bewilderment at their televisions because the Americans have pumped them back up to
being Enemy Number 1 without their ever having to lift a finger.

Putin doesn’t even have to act like his typical jerky egotistical, megalomania, tyrannical
self because we’re doing a fine enough job inflating his depraved ego
without his even trying…

During the Cold War, we were afraid of being blown off the map…
just as the Russians, aka Soviets, were afraid of the same fate.
It was literally a game of Russian Roulette with global annihilation at stake.

Churchill, way back in the 1940’s, first alerted the world that the slumbering Eastern Bear
would awake, making its presence known in a way that would cause grave troubles for all.

He was right.

Stalin proved him right….
As a long and dangerous “cold” war ensued.

Stalin’s crimes against humanity have rivaled, if not surpassed those of Adolph Hitler,
yet due to the silent steel curtain that has blanketed Russia since Lenin’s death and Stalin’s
rise to leadership in 1924, those facts have been buried in an eastern murky mire.

The world, following WWII, lived precariously and dangerously from day to day.
that was until 1989 when a dividing wall came tumbling down and a massive thaw took place….

However oddly it appears that both the leaders of the US and Russia seem to be more than
happy to return, turning the clock back to such frigid and frightening times.,..
as our news media readies the way….

Or maybe the truth of the matter is that we never really left those precariously
uncertain times….

I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles
in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned.
Keep away from them. For such people are not serving our Lord Christ,
but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people.

Romans 16:17-18

hanging…in the balance

“Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be,
since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.”

Thomas à Kempis

dscn4677
(Sweetgum balls hanging on the branches / Julie Cook / 2016)

Having read an interesting editorial type article this morning
(which was actually yesterday morning if you’re reading this on this particular morning)
I was struck by one sentence in particular, or actually just one part of the sentence…
Stuck such that it was one of those ‘the scales have fallen from my eyes and I can see clearly now’ moments…

…that God has given us over to ourselves…”

Wow!

There is so much truth and clarity in those 8 words that I immediately felt that these past
endless anguishing months of this election misery coupled by the feeling,
from what seems to be a decades long slow demise of our western society…
as in it’s all going to hell in a hand basket and why am I the only person
who seems to feel this way sort of thoughts,
that it all became amazingly crystal clear, snapping into a steely sharp focus,
the instant I read those words…

The article was actually a commentary, or perhaps more of a personal observation,
regarding this election business of ours…
written by Michael Brendan Dougherty, a correspondent at TheWeek.com.
I’d actually found his article posted on a blog post by an Eastern Orthodox monk.
Dougherty is a Catholic…and from reading his article, he’s my kind of Catholic—
as I tend to be a more orthodox Christian.

The entire article is on point, but it was that one sentence
“that God has given us over to ourselves”
which is what really jumped out at me…
like getting hit upside the head with a giant dose of Divine revelation.

And whereas I agree whole heartedly with the opinion of Mr Dougherty,
I know that there are a ton of folks who don’t or won’t and will pooh pooh the notion of
A) that there is a God, let alone one who is holding the balance of life in His hands
and
B) that that opinion is merely the ramblings of some rabid Christian xenophobe who doesn’t
know his a%# from a hole in the ground….

Yes, I’ve heard enough negative Conservative and Christian
bashing as of late to last me a life time….

But the fact that God has most assuredly handed us over to our own devices, or rather,
that He allowed us to hand our own selves over,
what with all that freewill of ours you know,
is so much more true than even most Believers will be able to grasp..

For we, the family of Believers, have tolerated far too much…oh so much…
more than we ever should have…
and for that…we are certainly now reaping what we have sat back and turned
a blind eye to for so very long.

We have tried to blend the world with the Word that was set upon this Earth to live amongst us..
The Word made flesh that came to set this world upside down upon its head…
yet we wanted things to be nice and calm while not rocking any boats..

We wanted to get along and not offend.
We wanted the best of both worlds…His and our own…
So we became hard headed and hard of hearing.
We became the masters of appeasement.
We played the games…
and now the game masters have mastered us…
as we are finding that we believe everything they tell us…hook, line and sinker…

We were told…
by The Divine Word…
how to live…
how to let live…
how to love…
how to behave…
yes, very much like children…
yet we chose not to listen…
trusting rather in our own empty self-centered ideas.

And now we are left wondering how, we as a society and as a people, ever found our way
to this point and this mess.

What mess you ask?

Just look around the globe…

From these two candidates being all we had to choose between…
to the Middle East which is boiling…
To Russia once again becoming our nemesis,
or perhaps we were only fooling ourselves as they’ve never not been our nemesis….

From the earth to which now grows heavy under the weight of our toxic living…
to a seething sea of mass immigration of epic proportions…
To our embracing a culture of death…

our messes are endless…

But as Mr. Dougherty reminds his readers at the end of his editorial,
he reminds us that God’s judgment is not to be infinitely bad
nor is it to be the end of the story…
for in that judgement of our having turned away from Him
is actually our story of Hope…

“But for those who can accept it, God’s judgment is a good thing.
The same fire that consumes the chaff is used to purify gold and silver.

Here’s the full article…
http://theweek.com/articles/659600/election-gods-judgment

And so today,this new morning, we see that life has taken yet another turn…
that perhaps not all have been prepared to take…
May we continue in our prayers for this Nation and her leaders—
that we will turn back to our Sovereign Lord…

If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored:
If you remove wickedness far from your tent

Job 22:23