Posted by
peripheral on Monday, July 27, 2009 9:25:35 AM
From My Perspective - - -
Broken Lives! Broken Homes! Broken Families! Broken Relationships!
Broken Hearts! People and Things that are broken are everywhere.
Disruptions in the ebb and flow of life is becoming too common place.
Disregard for values and valuables is lost amid the prevailing
self-centeredness. The ability to care is suppressed and the need to be
someone, somewhere has surfaced. The rampant slaughter of people in
other nations; the disregard of the environment; the mounting abortion
rate; the decline of charitable concern and giving – these and many
other symptoms are realities.
How can we shift from where we are to where we need to be? How can the
thinking of young and old alike return to the basic decency and values
of and for life? Part of what is in the air is arrogance on one hand,
and a sense of abandonment (giving up) on the other hand. A commentator
stated about our President: “His intelligence is only exceeded by his
arrogance.” Can it be that the population feels or believes they are
losing far more than they are gaining in 2009? Are lives filled more
with uncertainty than they are with hopefulness? The Homes, Savings,
Investments, Retirement, Care for the Aged, Integrity, etc. are all
slipping away and the future is just one large and glaring Question
Mark?
Last Friday (July 24, 2009), Peggy Noonan wrote in her column entitled: “COMMON SENSE MAY SINK OBAMA-CARE”: “I think the plan is being slowed and may well be stopped
not by ideology, or even by philosophy in a strict sense, but by simple
American common sense. I suspect voters, the past few weeks, have been
giving themselves an internal Q-and-A that goes something like this:
Will whatever health care bill is produced by Congress increase the
deficit? “Of course.” Will it mean tax increases? “Of course.” Will it
mean new fees or fines? “Probably.” Can I afford it right now? “No, I’m
already getting clobbered.” Will it make the marketplace freer and
better? “Probably not.” Is our health-care system in crisis? “Yeah, it
has been for years.” Is it the most pressing crisis right now? “No, the
economy is.” Will a health-care bill improve the economy? “I doubt it.”
And then she summarizes about unnecessary intrusions: “Let me throw
forward three other things that I suspect lessen, or will lessen,
support for full health-care reform, two of them not quantifiable. The
first has to do with the doctors throughout the country who give
patients a break, who quietly under-bill someone they know is in
trouble, or don’t charge for their services…People are afraid of losing
the parts of the system that sometimes workâthe unquantifiable parts,
the human parts. Second, and this is big, some of the bills being
worked on in Congress will allow for or mandate taxpayer funding of
abortion. Speaking only and narrowly in political terms, this is so
ignorant as to be astounding…The third point is largely unspoken but I
suspect gives some people real pause. We are living in a time in which
educated people who are at the top of American life feel they have the
right to make very public criticisms of…let’s call it the private,
pleasurable but health-related choices of others. They shame smokers
and the overweight. Drinking will be next…So this might be an
unarticulated public fear: When everyone pays for the same health-care
system, the overseers will feel more and more a right to tell you how
to live, which simple joys are allowed and which are not…” Compassion
and care will be absent - self-centeredness and self-assertive will be
present.
Puzzlement seems all-too-natural these days. A turning point in the
campaign of Bill Clinton came when he said to a questioner: “I feel
your pain!” Today we get the sense: “You really don’t have pain – I
have a program to pass!” Broken Hearts and Disregard/Disrespect are
realities. What is the only sure hope for the disenfranchised and the
brokenhearted? In PSALM 34:18,
we read: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who
are crushed in spirit.” I hope the Lord acts quickly in this regard – I
know some who are enduring the disappointment, discouragement and a
broken-heart right now! The government cannot help in this regard, but
neither should they compound one’s life with added burdens, costs and
loss. Puzzled by it all? Yes! Hopeful in the Lord? Absolutely! Consider
these things with me!