Blinded by Logs and/or $ucce$$

I am still affected by the motto in my childhood home which said “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” But I am also a believer in what Jesus said about the truth setting us free. This post may or may not be a rant about the current state of our nation and world, and it may not be “nice;” so be forewarned.

The current extreme weather all over our country makes me wonder what more it will take before everyone can see that we and our planet are in deep do do? I just read an article about the ocean waters around Florida heating up much faster than usual this summer and threatening to kill the coral. Farmer’s Insurance is pulling out of Florida because of extreme weather threats. And what is the Governor of Florida doing to save his state? Nothing but trying to drag it back into the 19th century!! Are the fossil fuel felons of the world and the politicians they own so blinded by their wealth and profits that they can’t see the flooding in Vermont and the triple digit temperatures in the Southwest? Are they so deaf they can’t hear that the all time record for the earth’s temperatures have been broken multiple days in a row this month?

Meanwhile, in our nation’s capitol one football coach from a former Confederate state is single handedly weakening our military by holding up confirmation of hundreds of military officers because of his personal beliefs about reproductive rights. Who in the world wrote rules for the United States Senate that empower one senator out off 100 to hold the other 99 hostage?? How in God’s name is that even possible in a democratic government??

And across the pond Putin’s diabolical attack on Ukraine has now been committing war crimes for over 500 days. Yes, I’m glad NATO is stepping up and has recovered from Trump’s undermining of it, and that’s great; but at what cost in dollars and lives? And I don’t even want to think about the epidemic of gun violence in this country that just keeps getting worse. It is such a common occurrence now that mass shootings are not even headline news anymore. What in the world is the flaw in human nature that we cannot find ways to solve our differences without reverting to violence?

I had two short vacation trips recently where I visited historical sights that played key roles in American history. One was the Fort Pitt museum at the confluence of Pittsburgh’s three rivers. Being a strategic point in the 18th century for control of the land called the Northwest Territory the victory over the French at Fort Pitt is celebrated for securing the advancing settlement of that land by the British and the American pioneers who followed. The second place I visited was the Perry Monument in Lake Erie commemorating Commodore Perry’s victory over the British in the War of 1812. That victory secured American control of the Great Lakes and provided another critical commercial and settlement route into the Great Lakes region.

What struck me about both of those places was first that violence as usual was used to take control of desired territory, and second that almost no attention in the accounts offered in either place about these military victories paid any attention to the fact that there were Native Americans living on this land long before the Europeans arrived, and the might-makes-right doctrine of dominion trumped all other concerns that should be so obvious to an objective observer.

In all of these cases humans were and continue to be blinded to truth and justice by a political and economic system built on greed for power and wealth with no long-term concern for the consequences of our actions. How ironic in a country that calls itself “Christian” when the Christ we claim to follow said very clearly in the Sermon on the Mount that “You cannot serve God and wealth.” (Matthew 6:24)

I thought I would end there until it hit me like a foul ball lined into the stands—what my ancestors did to the people living here first is no different than what Putin is doing in Ukraine! My rant against the speck in Putin’s eye blinded me to the log in our own. I don’t know why I didn’t see that much earlier, but I didn’t. I need some time to sit with that, and it won’t be comfortable.