Walk It Out

People like me never know
How the world works
Or who is in control
-- most of time,
Until it no longer matters.

We do the best we can
With assumptions,
Learn to keep moving
on the strength of gumption
-- whatever that is.

You wonder why the trail's
so hard
And such a struggle for
every yard.
Then one morning
You rise in the cold, thin light,
Look back and realize that
In the night
You reached the crest
Of a mountain pass
You never knew
You were climbing.

We tell those coming behind,
But they never believe us
In their time,
That it is a long, slow climb.
So some quit and stop,
Curse the ground,
Reinvent broken wheels,
Failed alchemy deals
To make the compass leave true,
Make the plumb line skew,
Much ado.

People like me never knew.

We are fools, to trust,
Believe any good or just
or true.
Yet here we stand
On the height
Dawn breaking from
The greivous, greedy night.
It's not that we were right.
We kept going.

Immigration, Population, and Government Jobs

When I was in college, back in the dark ages of the early 1970s, the big concern was the population bomb and a Malthusian fear of famine from trying to feed too many people.  We are still, nearly fifty years and three or four billion people later, running a food surplus in most of the world, most of time.  We owe that surplus to fossil fuels, petrochemicals, GMOs, and the dominance of agribusiness.  I'm not altogether sure that's a good thing, taken as a whole, but famine is, perhaps, the grimmest of reapers.

Now when I read about the dangers of declining populations, I have to wonder just a little.  Why would a more "sustainable" population be bad?  I tend to think it is for the same reason that immigration is heralded as a good, even when those immigrants are possessed of a vastly disparate cultural and religious background.  Most of the new immigrants and "refugees" pouring into the West are not assimilating or being altered by the culture.  The numbers are too large, the influx too rapid.

These immigrants are committing violent crimes.  They are putting a burden on the taxpayer who foots the bill for housing, welfare, health care, and education.  Governments are straining to handle and pay for the increasing numbers of unemployed and, often, unemployable foreigners.  Yet it is the government that allows immigration.  Are the people in power simply unaware of the problems and moved by compassion?

I think we all know the answer to that.  Could it be instead that more immigrants mean more votes for those who wish to expand the role of government?  Government, as I have said before, does not produce anything except more government.  Like the Blob, it exists to get bigger, more powerful, and more invasive.  Sure, there are some good people working in government jobs.  We don't deny that.  You can argue that some government jobs are necessary.  Firemen and police officers at the local level sometimes do essential and heroic work.  The guys down at the water treatment plant are saving lives every day. 

So long as they are local and their jobs clearly defined, I have little problem with those who work for the city or the county.  Except for the teachers, but they aren't really local anymore.  And at the state and federal level, I'm obviously in favor of the Border Patrol and some degree of national defense. 

The thing is that the political leaders in the West have no problem with an increase in crime or terrorism because it allows them to expand their control of the average citizen.  The NSA monitors all communications under the guise of the Patriot Act and the "War on Terror".  Despite the fact that drug prohibition feeds into gang violence just as alcohol prohibition did in the 1920s, the "War on Drugs" continues to enable police departments to expand, to militarize, and to excuse the routine seizure of property and assets without due process. 

Government feeds on chaos.  More strain on the education system excuses and enables the employment of teachers and administrators on the government payroll.  The strain on health care justifies the government's push for more control of the health care system just as the increase in crime justifies the expansion of police departments and the prison system.  And the vast majority of those employed are now beholden to the great white father in Washington or London or Brussels for their paychecks, pensions, and lucrative benefits. 

Eventually, who is left in the mobocracy to vote against such expansion?  The productive are now merely serfs in a vast fiefdom controlled by the political aristocrisy and their minions who now, more or less, vote for a living.

I can see where an end to uncontrolled immigration and a population decline would be seen as a threat.

Fathers and Sons

Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children – Ephesians 5:1

This, it seems to me, is a dangerous verse.  

I pity those who did not have my father to set an example and to emulate, not that Dad was in any way perfect.  He had a quick temper.  He was often violent toward inanimate objects.  He laughed at his own stories – I’m not sure how much of a flaw that is.  I suspect our Father in Heaven delights in His stories as well.  He was a banty badass.  If I could choose anyone who ever lived to back me in a fight, I would, without hesitation, pick him.  He would appreciate it, because he taught me value of loyalty, and I know that, regardless of the odds or the circumstances, he would not give in or give up. Loyalty may be the single virtue to which I can legitimately lay claim. 

As a son who loved his father and was loved by him, I admired him and sought to incorporate his traits in my own life.  I picked up the flaws along with the diamond, but sometimes those flaws were quite amusing.  I had a good time learning the hard way.  

That’s the way it is when you are a child.  You grow into an amalgam of your parents, if, like me, you are fortunate enough to have two parents who are complementary.  The combinations vary, which is why siblings are not uniform, plus each additional child is influenced by the ones that came before and those that come after.  Parents grow and change, and we learn that from them as well.  Jesus, the writer of Hebrews tells us, is the same yesterday, today and forever.  One cannot improve on perfection.  

As we study the Bible and pray, we bring our lives in line with our Father’s nature and character.  I don’t think it is a mistake to try and be good, to live by godly rules, and operate on a “what would Jesus do” basis, but I do think it ultimately fails.  Do not be conformed (Romans 12:2) – we have to be transformed from the inside out.  I did not become like my earthly father by consciously and religiously imitating his behavior, certainly not entirely.  In fact, for a long time, I thought I was nothing like him. It was only as I grew older that I realized my actions and attitude, my words and the way that I addressed the world grew out of the genetics as well as the mindset he had passed on to me.

All humans are made in the image and likeness of God.  We have, so to speak, the right spiritual genetics.  What we are typically lacking is extensive conversation and communion with our Father.  This comes in hearing His stories, in both speaking and listening in prayer.  It is no small thing that those disciples the resurrected Christ met on the road to Emmaus recognized Jesus at last in the breaking of bread (Luke 24:31).  I become like my earthly father over beans and cornbread.  We become like our heavenly Father through communion.  We are also influenced by and learn from our brothers and sisters in Christ.  And the Lord Jesus is Himself our loving and ever-present Elder Brother. 

We can consciously follow this path, but we will be, generally, a good way down the road before we recognize how much we have truly become like the Lord and the extent to which our lives have been transformed.