There are times I feel like Johnse Hatfield; maybe not the real
Johnse Hatfield, but at least the one played by Matt Barr in the History
Channel’s miniseries Hatfields &
McCoys. There was a scene in that
movie where Johnse is talking with his Dad as they sit by the river, Johnse
with a line in the water, and his Pa sitting behind him, ready to blow his
brains out for leaking information to one of the McCoy girls that got yet
another Hatfield killed, and Johnse’s words, as they were scripted, resonated
with me:
Ya know I hate all this. I always
have. I think all I ever wanted to do
was play; just laugh and play. It seems
like nobody 'round here ever laughs anymore, ‘cept maybe when a McCoy gets
maimed er killed. It must be a trial for
ya, Daddy; me not bein' like you… What I mean is, everybody looks up to
you. I mean, even your older
brothers. You know, there ain’t… there
ain’t nobody look up to me. I mean,
hell, there are those that say Cottontop’s more use. I don’t know how to be in this family. I mean I got, I got all the memories, you
know, I know all this happened. I jus',
I don’t have all the hate that comes with bein’ a Hatfield.
His words reach his Pa, who decides not to kill him, and I
feel like Johnse sometimes. I hate all the
hate. I hate all the division.
“A house
divided against itself cannot stand.”
–
Abraham Lincoln, which is derived from Matthew 12:25 and Mark 3:25
And yet I
seem to be mired in the middle of it all.
Can I see it all clearly?
I see
these videos on the internet in which right-leaning reporters interview people
on the left, and these people don’t seem to have a clue. When they are asked what fair and balanced,
objective reporters they go to so they can make informed decisions, many of
them made it a point to scream out “Not Fox News!” Several others immediately shouted out the
name “Rachel Maddow” and “MSNBC”, and still others like getting their “news”
from Jon Stewart and The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Bill Maher! When the reporter asked them if they thought
Rachel Maddow would be a fair and balanced moderator during a presidential
debate, they actually said “Yes.” Check out this link: http://www.mrctv.org/videos/where-do-liberals-get-their-news
You know
what though? Our side is probably the
same, or would probably be similar. I
can imagine that if these right wing reporters managed to speak with someone
with an actual brain in their head, they wouldn’t have shown it, because the report
was geared towards portraying these people as morons. Ann Coulter will brazenly just come right out
and say it. And in a thousand different
ways, there are little jabs happening back and forth, between the incumbents,
in the political attack ads on TV, in all the political bickering on line and among even friends and colleagues, and calling to mind the fighting and the
hate that visited such pain upon the Hatfields and McCoys. Since I’m on the right, I’m almost
automatically going to see all of it from that perspective. It’s almost impossible for me to see it any
other way. But I realize that perhaps my
perspective is not the best view to see the whole thing clearly. Maybe it is, but who's to say?
Yet even
if I were to remove myself from this viewpoint, and attempted to get a clearer depiction
of things from a non-partisan level, it still wouldn’t really answer all the questions that need to be answered, or provide a clearer picture.
That’s because everybody – and I do mean everybody – sees it all
from a particular point of view. Nobody
is outside of it all, and even those who think they are can still only see it
all from their limited position. I don’t
care if you happen to be a devout, gun-toting, righteous republican, a
freedom-loving, all-inclusive liberal, or a peace-loving libertarian or
independent who sees truthful shades of a Machiavellian nature in all
government and big business! Everybody
is caught up in it, and there are no easy answers once you attempt to dive right
into the middle of it all, and I’m not even sure I want to dive into the middle
of it all! I’m actually left in a bit
of a quandary. I don’t know whether I
should stay my course, dig deeper, or step back. My sister, and a lot of other people, would say "Dig Deeper", but sometimes it's akin to traversing a minefield!
Conservative
republican columnist Ann Coulter has made disparaging remarks about those who
are not either on the right or the left, but are “undecided”, saying that if
you are not either conservative or liberal, then you are an idiot. She goes on to describe liberals as
horrendously evil people worthy of whatever hate and disdain she sees fit to
throw at them, and in so doing, doesn’t do any real favors for the right by
spewing such hatred and animosity. In
fact, one can see why some people might want to disdain from all of it. In Ann’s black and white world, it seems you
are either one of the good guys – conservative republican Christians – the bad
guys – baby killing, homo-loving liberal democrats – or an idiot – everyone
else! The problem with someone like Ann
is that this isn’t quite the truth of it.
Many – though not all – liberals are actually good people who stand for
up for a belief in freedom and peace and love, and those aren’t bad things to
stand for! Many – though not all –
republicans are good people concerned about where this nation is headed monetarily,
militarily, and morally. And many –
though not all – of the others are people who don’t like what they see from
either of the other two camps, and above all else, do not like seeing all this
political fighting that masks what is really going on! By the same token, there really are
ill-informed or delusional people on all sides, and even those who
aren’t with either the conservatives or the liberals and attempt to rise above
the fray of politics can wind up just as “played” as everyone else. Any of them can wind up believing wild,
fantastical conspiracy theories, and it is difficult for anyone to be able to
separate fact from fiction in this kind of atmosphere, especially with easy information at your fingertips, just a simple click away! But just how much of it is real?
For
instance, those on the left have accused those on the right, particularly
President George W. Bush and his administration, of actually planning the
attacks on 9/11 so they could use it as an excuse to get backing for the
military and to get their foot in the Middle East for oil money and possibly
other reasons.
The right has accused the
left, and particularly President Obama, of having secret agendas and ties to
the Muslims. Questions about his ring, and if there is a Muslim inscription, are all the rage these days! (See the links here, here, and here!) What's real here? Who knows? Those “above the fray” of
politics have accused big business and banks of conspiracies involving the
assassinations and attempted assassinations of Presidents who don’t tow their
big business party line. Apparently, Social Security was started when a group of big business fat cats were planning FDR's assassination; he got wind of it and worked out a deal! Along with all
of this, there are conspiracies surrounding everything from the space program (the 1969 moon landing was staged and aliens landed in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947) to
international politics, and though some of it would invariably have to be true,
just by the law of averages, just how do you separate fact from fiction? This is a road we should tread very
carefully, and not just jump on any information we happen to come across, or
we’ll wind up like the reporters on MSNBC and the misinformed viewers who like
being deceived. And I must then ask
myself the tough question: Are my news
sources the same, just from the other angle?
It makes
one ask another tough question: Just
what is real? What can I put my faith
in? And in the face of not knowing
anything for certain, not even empirical science, especially in today’s
political atmosphere, and if you take into account the philosophies of people
like Descartes and Kant, then that means the best you can do is to make as
educated a guess as possible in what you choose to believe and follow that,
because NOTHING is certain! The
scientists will tell you that science is certain, but it’s not, and the
Christians will tell you that God and the Christian doctrine is certain, but
it’s not either. There’s a certain
amount of belief in both. God cannot be
proven, but He can’t be disproven either, and if you put all your faith in
science, ask yourself how different the scientific world of today is from the
scientific world of 100 years ago. They
were saying the same thing about the certainty of empirical science then too,
before Einstein and Hawkings came along with something completely different!
I hate to
sound like an Eastern mystic, but everyone must make their choice to follow
their own path. Others will invariably see
problems with it, in the same way I see problems with those on the left who are
so easily deluded. Everybody with half a
brain will search for certainties in this world, and for a while, I did my
searching in the dark, thinking that there would come a time when I could be
certain about what I might find and could then, and only then, make informed
decisions about what to believe. But
life isn’t certain, and I quickly discovered that I would never find all
the answers that would remove all doubt.
I found out I would have to make a choice, even without being certain,
and I realized that everybody has to make this same choice at some point
in their lives, or continue in the dark.
No, my
religion is not certain. It is a
belief. But so is science, and so is
political theory, and any philosophies or theologies you may choose to follow
or believe. And the one thing I chose to
believe in – quite some time ago – was in the Christian God, and His perfect
Son Jesus Christ, who is somehow separate and yet the same as part of a nearly
incomprehensible Godhead. I put my stock
in that, and if it does not dictate the way I think and live my life,
then I at least want it to. When all is
confusion, and I don’t know what to do, I step, once again, into what I’ve
chosen to believe more than anything else.
I step back into Jesus.
Hail Jesus, You’re
my King (Hail Jesus, You’re my King)
Your life frees me
to sing (Your life frees me to sing)
I will praise You
all my days (I will praise You all my days)
You’re perfect in
all Your ways (You’re perfect in all Your ways)
Hail Jesus, You’re
my Lord (Hail Jesus, You’re my Lord)
I will obey Your
word (I will obey Your word)
I want to see Your
Kingdom come (I want to see Your Kingdom come)
Not my will but
Yours be done (Not my will but Yours be done)
Glory, glory to
the Lamb (Glory, glory to the Lamb)
You take me into
the land (You take me into the land)
We will conquer in
Your name (We will conquer in Your name)
Oh, and proclaim
that Jesus reigns (And proclaim that Jesus reigns)
Hail, hail Lion of
Judah (Hail, hail Lion of Judah)
How powerful You
are (How powerful You are)
Hail, hail Lion of
Judah (Hail, hail Lion of Judah)
How wonderful You
are (How wonderful You are)…
- “Victory
Chant”
Bob Fitts, Wow Worship Orange
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