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: [email protected]