AS STRAWS IN THE
WIND
Dorothy A. Seese
November 18, 2005
NewsWithViews.com
As one bell upon another tolls for those of my generation, the
generation that entered college in the early to mid 1950's with the
future of the entire world in our hands, we know another one of us
is missing from this life and has gone on to eternity. The movie
stars of our youth, the broadcasters who shaped the minds of the
next generation (for good or bad, as one's viewpoint dictates), the
politicians without whom things would certainly crash about us ...
gone from our sight. At one point some of these icons were the
movers and shakers upon whose opinions and insights we directed our
course. Or they were role models for the things we ourselves had to
accomplish to carry out the great mission of ensuring that the
world survives for more generations. What a heavy load to carry,
what a noble cause for which to sacrifice. That was the mindset of
my generation ... no one assigned these responsibilities to us,
they "devolved" upon us as the youth, the future of the world. We
inherited responsibilities and stood up to challenges.
Looking at today's world, we obviously missed the whole
point ... our responsibilities were a lot more limited, our spheres
of influence were smaller than a city block and our passing is
hardly cause for someone to say a half-hearted "oh too
bad."
The world we didn't have in our charge and control is a
sloppy mess filled with evil and violence. No, don't call us or any
generation "the greatest" one of all, there is none such upon the
earth filled with flawed men and women of hubris or
hopelessness. We were just another generation, perhaps
filled with more exuberance than the youths of the Great Depression
who didn't know the way out, or who had to drop their
dreams and pick up their shovels to eke out any kind of
living. We lived in the most respected nation in the
world, in 1952, but instead of making it greater we and our
offspring (if any, I have none) have let the new era scalawags and carpetbaggers
run off with our taxes, our retirement, our medical care and the
control of our government which was supposed to be a people's
government. Those of the baby-boomer generation who have
positions of leadership are diluting our culture by leaving our
borders open, and under the guise of giving us security have taken
the liberties so many of my generation gladly handed over to
prevent being discomforted by terrorism.
Unbelievable? I wish this were a nightmare rather than the
description of a page from today's scenario of life in the United
States, Planet Earth.
Some folks notice the past ten years have seen an
advancing, accelerating decline in morality, educational
"outcomes" (aka dumbed down kids), and a terrifying loss of
personal liberty. My grandparents owned a homestead
south of Bisbee, Arizona, in 1905. They owned it
unconditionally. No
property taxes. No limits on fencing their property against one set
of heathen neighbors who wanted to use it to run their rustled
cattle through to the site of re-branding. Grandpa was a man
other men feared. He
would protect his family and was expected to do so ... no
explanation needed for shooting a malicious trespasser who would
harm his wife and daughters. People could even protect their property at gunpoint in
those days. Criminals
weren't the poor victims in those days. Up was up, down was down,
everyone understood "is" and while there were evil people around
(and have been since the fall of Adam) there was frontier justice,
swift and final.
Now people own everything conditionally, subject to paying taxes to
the governments (local, state, federal) to be able to keep owning
it, which isn't ownership at all. Property taxes, auto license lieu
taxes, boat taxes, income taxes, death taxes, all manner of taxes
make ownership conditional upon paying our own government tribute
to allow us to live!
That isn't freedom, and few people ever give it a thought. And yes,
I pay my property taxes to keep my condo and the auto lieu tax so
my current tags let me drive where I need to go. I'm just
mindful that my paid-for property isn't really mine as long as
government has the right to set the tax rate and, if so inclined,
set it so high I cannot keep my property. File that last statement
for reference.
Few people "get it" that the government has no source of
revenue other than what it extorts from the people by way of
taxation and redistributes by entitlements so-called. Few people
feel that licensing is a form of tax vehicle, not a source of order
and protection. Now, with today's technology, it's a source of
snooping as well! Oh yes, we need to catch all those terrorists who
are just waiting for the right time to give us all bird flu. And
it's probably some violation of "hate speech" law to suggest that
the terrorism just may have its source at home rather than
abroad.
The Black Plague that hit Europe in the 14th century still has not
been definitively identified as the bubonic. It supposedly was
carried into Europe by Mongols who brought goods from the Orient to
Europe, along with rats infested with infected fleas. However, the
disease spread faster than the rats, so there's some question as to
whether the virus/bacteria became airborne. We know it decimated
Europe and everywhere else it hit, so that long before today's
"sustainable earth" depopulation goals were formulated,
depopulation occurred by war, pestilence and famine.
The Four Horsemen have been riding across the earth for centuries.
Even without war, famine and pestilence, death comes to all, and
few names survive the shifting sands of time. One Pythagoras, one
Alexander, one Galileo, people whose contributions really do affect
the way life is lived today.
One Jesus
Christ, Lord of All to those who believe in His redemptive
work.
Kingship is something ingrained in a human being's "need box"
inside the spirit. Why? Because there is but one "King" and
the earth has always rejected Him in favor of lesser gods and
little petty kings. His own people rejected Him long
before Christ was born, when Israel rejected the Judges, in the
days of Samuel, and cried for a king. The problem is,
people don't want a true king, they want a kindly father who will
grant them all their wants and wishes, to which there is no visible
end. They only cry to this father figure as a "god" when
they want deliverance from danger and the evils of this world, and
at that point where their spirits must leave this earth, allowing
the body to return to dust and the soul to go forward to its
destiny in eternity. They have to make that trip alone, no
human can accompany them. Coming into the world involves a mother,
leaving it demands a father to meet them and guide them safely
home. The problem is, few have met the correct "father" to do that
job, but have relied on every manner of idol, statue, carving,
human usurper of divine status, and humanly-devised government
system that attempts to take the place of the True
King.
Recent natural disasters have proven the worthlessness of
government to save us from the hurricanes, tornadoes that devastate
in less than sixty seconds, storm surges that topple buildings,
winds that snap trees like match sticks, snows that bury and floods
that wash away our bodies like roadway debris. We're humans and we
stand helpless before the power of nature's forces ... fire,
earth/mud, wind and water.
Crying to government for help is calling to equally
helpless humans whose power exists only in being able to command
the forces of force (the law and the military) to move the herds
around. Their power looks good on the media, it looks useless in
the face of something like a Category 4 or 5 hurricane or a 20-foot
storm surge. Government? That's security? No, it's force ... in
times when force can be exerted.
We're straws in the wind, all of us. Seldom known to one another,
we're all known to God. He has known us since before the
foundation of this world.
We do well to get
that straight, because there is no other refuge or fortress, no
other power, no other King with the ability to give life, resurrect
the body and make all things new. Without that hope, life is a sad
lottery of fools on fools' errands in a meaningless universe so
large that we scarcely exist.
Remembering that we are only straws in the wind, except for God's
grace, is indeed the beginning of wisdom and the only worthwhile
perspective that has a guaranteed future as well as strength for
each day.
Begin with humility, there is no other road to
triumph.
© 2005 Dorothy A. Seese - All Rights Reserved
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Dorothy Anne Seese has been working since she was three and a half
years old, but not as a journalist.
Her career began as a child actress in the 1939-1942 "Five Little
Peppers" film series produced by Columbia that mercifully ended
with the nation's involvement in World War II, although she did do
small parts in a few films until 1953. By that time, she was a
student at U.C.L.A. where she received her liberal arts degree in
Political Science.
E-Mail:
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