Ancient Truth | Modern Sound

Early this year I changed job and went to work for a company based here in Europe.  In fact, I will be living with Karen and the girls in The Netherlands while Jack, our oldest, goes to college in the US.  It is only a minute ago it seems I held Jack in the moments after his birth.  Now he is getting close to eighteen.  I am getting old.

Changing jobs seemed like a good idea but when I was thinking about moving I wasn’t thinking that the world would be dealing with the largest economic contraction since the great depression.  Well, here we are.  New job, new country, new world order.  But same old faith, thankfully. 

It’s easy to see what is happening around us as a calamity thrust upon us by bankers.  That’s the story line that seems to have gained most traction.  In the UK Sir Fred Goodwin is being vilified in the press for walking away from a bank, the centuries old Royal Bank of Scotland of which he was CEO, with a $1 million per year pension for life.  Hard to justify that given the circumstances.  Look a bit deeper though and the trail of shame leads from banks to governments.  The UK government’s lack of adequate regulation of financial markets and the US governments aggressive push to create home owners who basically could not afford to own a home has saddled us all with the fallout of the bad debts as defaults mount. 

Stopping there would be certainly be good for our collective conscious.  Blaming big business or big government is convenient but alas I think there is one other group at the heart of this fiasco and that is us.  The metaphor I offer you is a something I thought for a long term was uniquely American and, indeed, a pretty good thing, “Public Storage”.   http://www.publicstorage.com/Corporateinformation/CorpAbout.aspx  The first time I saw a Public Storage location I asked what people stored there.  As the person explained to me what people would use the storage unit for I could only wonder that America was a country of such abundance that its citizens needed space to store the stuff they basically didn’t need but still had.  Awesome!  This first sighting was 20 years ago and over the years I have used the presence of Public Storage as a proxy of growing prosperity.  A few years ago I started noticing them around London, and then recently I noticed one in my home town in Glasgow.  The definition of having a lot is that you need special spaces to store the stuff you don’t really need and so “having a lot” had come to Glasgow.  Having a lot has also come to The Netherlands as Public Storage even has a few locations here too. 

With some apologies to Public Storage as a company - I am sure they provide a fine service -  in the current economic climate doesn’t this seem to have transformed from a metaphor of prosperity to a metaphor for something else much darker?  Somewhere along the line we stepped over the line of enough and wandered into the country of excess.  Like the prodigal the son we took the inheritance early and spent it on stuff we didn’t need.  We thought we were living and alive but we wake up one day and we realise we are in the pig trough.  (Luke 15:13 ff)

This is a pretty gloomy post but perhaps we should remember how the story of the prodigal ends.  The wayward son comes to his senses and while he is still far off his father runs to greet him, welcoming him back into the family home.  (Luke 15:20 ff) Many of us over these next couple of years will be happy to turn back towards a father and a family that doesn’t really care how much we have and in fact has riches itself beyond our comprehension.

Maybe you are like me and the election didn’t go the way you hoped, so you are wearing black this week and writing a new pledge of allegiance:

I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the divided states of America
and to the republic that I don’t understand
one Obamanation
under God’s judgment
with licentiousness and lack of judgment by all

Yeah, I know, a little over the top.  I was watching the election coverage until I went to bed, and I thought of this pledge parody as I was falling asleep.  I thought, “Should I get up and write this down? … Nah!  I don’t care if I remember it or not.”  Nonetheless, I remembered it in the morning and posted it on my FaceBook account.  Isn’t that thrilling.

Maybe you are not like me at all, and instead you are riding on a wave of optimism and hope that springs from Barack Obama bringing a fresh start to our nation.  You are hoping for change to believe in!  Maybe you are one of America’s 51% who cast a very happy vote for this (previously) unknown senator from Illinois.  If you are, then you are probably very hopeful for the kind of change that he will inspire in our great country.  (and you probably didn’t make it reading further than my pledge.)

I can’t imagine the mess we would have woken up to on Wednesday if McCain had won.  People would have been violently angry, and I think the morale of the nation would have been at a new all time low.  I think there would have been massive public despair and disillusionment.

On the other hand, there seems to be a bounce in the step of many people right now, people are feeling hopeful and optimistic.   Happiness and joy are contagious, and whether we want to admit it or not, many of us who are disappointed in the outcome of the election are feeling the ripple of euphoria from the “other side.”  Things actually seem pretty bright.

This doesn’t mean that my grave concerns have gone away.  The grave concerns are front and center, but the problem is that McCain didn’t really answer those concerns much better than Obama.

Some Concerns:

1. I am troubled that Obama is so rabidly pro-abortion, but McCain is not much more of a defender of the unborn when it comes right down to it. Both of them support funding Planned Parenthood.  ‘Nuff said.

2. I am troubled that Obama wants to raise taxes on the people who already pay the most taxes, and “spread the wealth around.”  The government does not need to be in the business of playing Robin Hood.  On the other hand, McCain had the crazy idea to buy the bad mortgages and he supported the financial bailout package, and that’s not much better.  I would love to have a president who understands economics better than I do, someone who knows what a budget is, and knows how to stay within it.  We were not going to get that either way the election went.

3.  I am troubled that Obama is perceived to be a pacifist.  I don’t want the Commander and Chief of the United States Military to be perceived as a pacifist.  I want him to be perceived as a crazy mean dog that you better not mess with, or he will bite your face off.  I sleep better at night with a well trained pitbull in the yard than a cute little Yorkie.  On this issue, McCain wins hands down.

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE:
But, there are many good things about Obama winning the election.  The optimistic sense of hope is actually a beautiful thing, and not something that I have seen much of in my lifetime.  It feels like our black brothers and sisters are standing a little taller, and I hope that translates into a better sense of citizenship and responsibility.  Whether we want to admit it or not, this is a global culture, and the world is excited to see Obama win the election.  This could translate into a more favorable world opinion, and that would be helpful in many ways.  We need to be thankful for the good things, and accept the leader that God has given us.  We must learn how to honor Obama and we must pray for him to be a good and wise leader.

 Please join me in this prayer today.

In the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with all our heart and with all our mind, let us pray:

LORD, have mercy on us and grant us peace, fill us with Your loving-kindness and thankfulness for the salvation of our souls and our lives.  We ask for the peace in this world, for healing in our nation and for the unity of all peoples.

For our President-Elect, Barack Obama, for the leaders of the nations, and for all in authority, we pray to the LORD.  We humbly ask that You would give them wisdom and direction.  We ask that you would turn their hearts toward the protection of the weak and the helpless.  We ask that You would allow them to see the wisdom of Your will and Your Law, and that they would be given a heart to understand it.  We ask that you would actively restrain the evil that they are allowed to do by Your mighty and powerful hand.

We thank You, Almighty God, for Your grace and abundant blessings to this nation.  May we be good citizens and faithful stewards of all You have entrusted us with.

AMEN

Those who read this blog know (I hope) that I suffer from a deep and debilitating addiction.  Constantly I battle against this force of nature which, if I am honest, has controlled me as long as I can remember.   My addiction has a name, it is Karen, she is my wife.  But not just a wife, a tr-athlete, my tri-athlete.   At the weekend Karen and a friend competed in a triathlon and Karen made a big progress in all of her times.  I am immensely proud of her and deeply jealous.  She does what I want to do. 

After doing great things as a tri-athlete at the weekend Karen took time off from swimming, running, and biking, to condemn my “Obama tendencies”.  I think that she means that I appear to waver from the true blue Republican line.  Perhaps.  But I contend that where you are on the political spectrum kind of depends on your point of reference.  As far as I am concerned the sun rises and sets with Karen, but compared with the mileage eating swim dog that is my wife, Attila the Hun was a tree hugging leftie.   

What I really think is kind of summed up in this article from newspaper here in the UK.  If we vote in Obama we are taking a groundbreaking risk but, given the circumstances, maybe it’s worth it.  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/10/28/do2806.xml

And what about those circumstances.  Own any shares?  Even if you think you don’t you probably do.  Know what a “hedge fund” is?  I don’t, and I never gave my money to one.  But my guess is that you, like me, have some dollars tucked away in a hedge fund that is in the process of being partially or completely liquidated.  If you have money in a mutual fund probably some of your money was in “investment vehicles” that had about the same chance of success of you being dealt blackjack at a card table.  Kiss goodbye to those dollars.  You are probably wondering what is happening in the world in this financial crisis, who isn’t?  Let me give you my unifying theory of why we all need to think A LOT about what is happening around us.  (more…)