struggle for rights is …
now a point of pride for all …
must never go back!

There is sin and evil in the world, and we’re enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might.

Our nation, too, has a legacy of evil with which it must deal.

The glory of this land has been its capacity for transcending the moral evils of our past.

For example, the long struggle of minority citizens … for equal rights, once a source of disunity and civil war is now a point of pride for all Americans.

We must never go back.

There is no room for racism, anti-Semitism, or other forms of ethnic and racial hatred in this country.

Ronald Reagan, March 8, 1983.

This speech became famous as President Reagan called out the USSR as the ‘Evil Empire’.

As Edmund Morris wrote in the book, “Dutch”, Reagan used the speech to note that the United States had PURGED ITSELF of racism and class prejudice.

President Reagan, I think, really thought that.

So did I.

President Reagan warned, “We must never go back.”

I would have agreed.

Not it seems, we never really left those things behind.

Someone had to come along and rip off the band aid and tear off the scab to show it was all still there.

God does indeed have a purpose for everyone in his great plan.

The President would go on and quote CS Lewis saying:

It was C.S. Lewis who, in his unforgettable “Screwtape Letters,” wrote: “The greatest evil is not done now…in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint.

It is…not even done in concentration camps and labor camps.

In those we see its final result, but it is conceived and ordered; moved, seconded, carried and minuted in clear, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.”

Evil is but it is conceived and ordered;

moved,

seconded,

carried

and minuted

in clear,

carpeted,

warmed,

and well-lighted offices,

by quiet men with white collars

and cut fingernails

and smooth-shaven cheeks

who do not need to raise their voice.

Don’t know about you but that Lewis quote hit me hard.

How in the world did we get here?

people of the world
still share that hope dignity
having some control

The people of the world still share that hope . . .

They want the dignity of having some control over their individual destiny.

They want to work at the craft or trade of their own choosing and to be fairly rewarded.

They want to raise their families in peace without harming anyone or suffering harm themselves.

Ronald Reagan in a letter to Leonid Brezhnev, April 22, 1981.

Hope.

Dignity.

Control over their individual destiny.

Peace.

Without harming anyone.

Not suffering harm themselves.

Growing up with Reagan as President in the 1980’s I cannot say I am a big fan … but he sure looks good in the rear view mirror.

imagine having a
city full of things that no
other city had

That’s the way of the world, of course.

Possessions get discarded.

Life moves on.

But I often think what a shame it is that we didn’t keep the things that made us different and special and attractive in the fifties.

Imagine those palatial downtown movie theaters with their vast screens and Egyptian decor, but thrillingly enlivened with Dolby sound and slick computer graphics.

Now that would be magic.

Imagine having all of public life — offices, stores, restaurants, entertainments — conveniently clustered in the heart of the city and experiencing fresh air and daylight each time you moved from one to another.

Imagine having a cafeteria with atomic toilets, a celebrated tea room that gave away gifts to young customers, a clothing store with a grand staircase and a mezzanine, a Kiddie Corral where you could read comics to your heart’s content.

Imagine having a city full of things that no other city had.

From The life and times of the thunderbolt kid : a Memoir by Bill Bryson, New York, Broadway Books (2006).

To punch away once more at Mr. Bryson’s words, that’s the way of the world, of course.

Possessions get discarded.

Life moves on.

But I often think what a shame it is that we didn’t keep the things that made us different and special and attractive.

piling on problems
persistence of poverty
in life should shame us

Poverty is measured at different income levels, but it is experienced as an exhausting piling on of problems.

Poverty is chronic pain, on top of tooth rot, on top of debt collector harassment, on top of the nauseating fear of eviction. It is the suffocation of your talents and your dreams.

It is death come early and often.

From 2001 to 2014, the richest women in America gained almost three years of life while the poorest gained just 15 days.

Far from a line, poverty is a tight knot of humiliations and agonies, and its persistence in American life should shame us.

All the more so because we clearly have the resources and know-how to effectively end it.

From the Guest Opinion piece, America Is in a Disgraced Class of Its Own by Matthew Desmond, a sociologist at Princeton, where he is the director of the Eviction Lab.

Mr. Desmond continues:

Most Americans — liberals and conservatives alike — now believe people are poor because “they have faced more obstacles in life,” not because of a moral failing.

Long overdue, however, is a reckoning with the fact that many of us help to create and uphold those obstacles through the collective moral failing of enriching ourselves by impoverishing others.

Poverty isn’t just a failure of public policy.

It’s a failure of public virtue.

I am not so sure that most Americans don’t think that the poor are poor because they deserve to be poor due to some moral failing.

And I don’t care why poor people are poor.

The fact that they are are poor should be enough.

Truly I think we cannot do anything about the poor in the long run, as the poor will always be with us, but what do we do, what did we do in the short run?

Jesus himself said that “The poor you will always have with you.“

Myself, I think if that as being a bit of test for us.

And Jesus also said, “For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink.

I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ “

They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

Is there another way to express that last line?

The line that says, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me?

A failure of public virtue seems to fit nicely.

Tts persistence, both poverty and the failure in public virtue in American life should shame us.

But those words, virtue and shame.

Lets just say when the State of Florida gets around to releasing their approved dictionary, I doubt either word will be in there.