"I find this so unsavory ... they‘re going out and killing people around the world to spread democracy, and what are we spreading? A form of government based on how much money you can raise from rich people."
- Chris Matthews, host of Hardball with Chris Matthews, on the record-breaking campaign fundraising figures for the 2008 presidential election. (Source:
MSNBC.com)
Yes, there is so much I can only call evil (and I mean that in the literal sense) in our government right now that it is mind boggling that the general population, especially educated Christian Conservatives, do not question the ready evidence of hypocrisy, inane reversals, blatant lies and manipulation of the media this administration has openly orchestrated. I know I'm not the only one who feels a growing sense of outrage as I impotently watch the President override the democratic process again and again. He and his cronies seem to delight in their misuse of executive power and perversions of intellect. I was especially horrified when I saw the ludicrous spectacle of Karl Rove and Bushites parody of a Rap performance at the White House Correspondent's Dinner. Check out Elizabeth de la Vega's article on TomPaine.commonsense
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/04/04/doin_the_karl_rove_dance.php.
Upon seeing "Karl's dance" on CNN, the first thing that went through my mind was Rove was dancing on the graves of the dead. How can "the most powerful men in the world" act with such lack of compassion and dignity when Iraqis and US soldiers were getting blown apart at that very moment. How many times will we watch the highest government officials in our land parade their heartless lack of concern and common decency in front of a laughing cloister of elitist "Yes Persons" as yet another war rages out of control in the Middle East threatening the world and leaving thousands dead or terribly maimed. Why are they not weeping? Why are we all not weeping? Instead we escape into our busy lives and allow our elected leaders to dance on the graves of the poor, the defenseless and the misled. Why do we just stand by and watch them laugh at their clever ability to manipulate the system to avoid accountability? How can a "Christian Country" allow such cruelty and hypocrisy? Maybe, like many Christians in North America, the very government officials who claim to be the instruments of God's righteousness do not truly believe in the real, living power of the Christ they profess to follow. They enjoy a false sense of emotional security founded in blind allegiance to an attractive, philosophical lie perpetrated by a apathetic, insulated and satiated contemporary Christian culture.
The truth is God is not just a philosophical idea. He is a reality and will hold us accountable for the choices we make. Those who choose not to be instruments of God's Love may evade judgment in this life but they will not be able to avoid it in the next. Will Christ say, "I never knew you?" It isn't God's desire to be separated by degrees from the creation he Loves. Separation from Love is a consequence of choosing the illusion of ego-centered self-determination and the empty pleasures of the world instead of completely surrendering our will to God's transforming Spirit, unconditional Love and eternal Life.
Truly surrendering to God and opening our hearts to Spiritual Reality is not a rational process. Rather God asks us to choose a course that runs contrary to man's natural tendency for self-preservation and rational thinking. Christ asks us to surrender our will, everything we are and everything we have, to His will. Christ says we must die to the self to live in Him. We must love our enemies. We must trust God completely to provide our needs. We must believe Christ's resurrection makes it possible for us to have an even deeper intimate spiritual relationship with God than mankind originally enjoyed. Christ asks us to do the impossible and then makes it possible through God's gifts of grace and the power of His Holy Spirit.
The Spirit convicts me. Can my heart's natural response be Love for all people...even my enemies? I know God wants me to pray for the Bush administration and love them. Love forgives everything. Christ wash and cover me with your blood of complete forgiveness and help expand the opening you made in my heart so the will of the Spirit can work in and through me. I remember your gift of unconditional Love this week. Help me remember it every day.
Labels: Love
