This post I do not expect to be applauded, at least as much as the 600+ who offered anniversary blessings on Facebook. I apologize to my wife and friends, I just feel compelled to share my perspective on this 1st day of 2022.
In my reading this morning, the author speaks to Israel's diaspora by way of a commentary on the book of Acts. Isreal is still there.
We all are! This world is not our home. Maybe diaspora is God's strategy to frustrate us to grace, and from grace to love, from love to neighborliness.
Not all of us humans are as easily attracted to love and in some cases suffering for others, a faith concept foreign to most in America.
As humans, we seem always on the move, resisting the power of love, more driven to our own devices. This resistance to love has its consequences long term.
From Eden to Abram, Moses to David, the prophets to Paul, we witness a flight from love and with that a mounting peril, even among the faith professing folk.
From Antioch's Christianity within a few hundred years birthed an Institutional Church, and from there a justification for world colonization.
Soon the prairies of Native Americans were invaded by a Wild West, humans slaughtered by a military authorized to protect pioneers and gold diggers. All this was seen as properity, a means of further empowering an industrial revolution, one which openly exploited the labor pool.
Simultaneously, when indentured servitude became inadequate for our plantations, we dared stack African's belly to back, words painful for this privileged one to write. Only of late have their progeny gained some hard earned, even blood stained equity and influence.
With that comes a rightful browning of America, a nation still holding fast to a false sense of racial superiority. Some now put their trust more in fear-mongering politicians, than the faith they profess. All the while, sitting in segregated sanctuaries driven by a misunderstood text of scripture. Unfortunately, or maybe providentially threatened by virus, our churches sit half full or vacant.
Cities built upon the American dream, once inspired by the wit of immigrants are now riddled with blatant disparities and growing problems of homelessness.
Interestingly, our borders are still seen as thresholds of hope by hoards of humans who also harbor dreams for their own children. Our standard of living is still the envy of most countries.
Centuries of mounting wealth that would seem sufficient is hoarded, while a global dominance that once brought security is now threatened. Our economy is being held together by debt, with a false sense of recovery promoted by way of a flow of borrowed funds. With that influx of money, spending and demand now fans inflation, as the wealthy eventually reap the benefits.
Sustainability of such disproportionate debt is now threatened by labor shortages brought on by a graying population, and a perhaps a growing awareness of the right to a livable wage for a day's pay.
Those who have the technology or means are hesitant to return to work or at least to the offices that have demanded their lives, having now enjoyed the benefits of family time.
As to the interest on that debt, much is garnered by the same few, some with revenue streams that exceed small countries. Tax laws, passed by politicians funded by that wealth provide even more shelter for that wealth.
Corporations are now less nationalistic and even more globally dependent for off-shore production and transport of materials. Many of those countries with whom our lives are co-dependent are in the hands of maniacal tyrants, some now becoming equally armed!
Could 2022 provide a much needed wake up call for our nation? A moment of repentance, policy change, restabalization, if not transformation. I hope so!
For the faithful and the fearful, there is Good News! This world is not our home!
The bad news, for now it's the only globe we have!