Can We Find Peace? | Eastern North Carolina Now

    I have been writing here for quite a few months in the hopes of broadening the scope of a most conservative e-magazine. I like the quality of the articles and appreciate the Editor (not editor, publisher only) and Owner, Stan Deathridge (Stan Deatherage), allowing my view to be seen and heard. He had a little niche of super conservatism before I came on. He has described me as "from the middle" as well as "liberal." Many of the articles and comments are somewhat hostile to any candidate or political leaders they describe as "liberal / inept / wasteful / socialists / big government / you name it." Epithets seldom result in good debate and compromise.

    We had a recent election in November which the conservatives claim is a mandate from the people for them to have their way. The President gave his State of the Union Tuesday and I was watching the audience as I did my congregation on Sunday for some 30 years of Baptist preaching. You can tell a lot from the facial reactions as to what is up.

    If I had to use one word to describe what I saw Thursday, it would be SPLIT. If I had to describe the emotion of many, it would be HATE. Despite all this the President had them laughing toward the end as though their faces might crack open. His classic zinger was "I won my 2 elections." They are all products of elected office and know what he means. You are a TEMPORARY representative. If you do well you could go back. If not, OUT OF HERE!

    This last election put people into office for 4 years. Those not running this summer are up for the end of their 4 years in 2016. The President cannot stand for another election according to our amended Constitution. I think we would be wise to extend the Term Limit to Congress, and, perhaps, the Supreme Court. Our nation is one of the New World and Way. The concepts we adopted in the beginning were an experiment in Democracy along the lines of the Greeks and Romans. They came from the abuse of power and wealth of the Old World. I think we have a real battle right now over our exact nature as a country.

    I was born in 1946 right after WWII. Most of our fathers and some of our mothers were involved on the battlefield, in support roles, working to produce the planes and tanks required, living off ration coupons for gas and food. We ALL had to sacrifice in war against Germany and Japan. We also came back with a spiritual outlook honed by war. When you charge a beach like Normandy, you know it is all in God's hands. You can do all you can to survive, but better men than you are killed because of pure luck. You come home wondering, "Why did I survive when my buddies were shot or blown to bits?" Some were just a pile of mush which, except for a dog tag on the neck and in the boot, could not be identified. The mass graves at Manila and Normandy tell us the high price of freedom and independence. My wife's uncle is in Manila. His $10,000 death benefit built our Bayview Cottage where we now live.

    In my 68 years of life and experience I have seen a great change. The 50-60's of my childhood had only the Korean Conflict which was quickly over. The 60-70's phase saw Vietnam kill and maim my buddies from high school. Most of the guys put down their Sunday School books and Bibles, picked up their Playboy and Penthouse magazines and "just had fun." Girls got liberated with the pill and recreational sex became the norm---until AIDS reared its ugly head along with other STD germs and diseases. Some became sterile over their ways of lust and party.

    Our seeking of thrills has now crossed sexual lines. Some enjoy the company and intimacy with the same sex. That has led to another issue of great emotion---the NC Marriage Amendment. It was passed and then has been reversed as a Constitutional offence over freedom to live as you choose in America. It is in the same category of black-white issues over voting rights and citizen equality. I thought we were past that one, but the cop killings and riots over the summer prove we have deeper hate than most realized!

    We had the awful events of 9/11 followed by a war and torture of prisoners. We sent troops into Iraq and other countries. All over our battlefields are other possible things for greed

    OIL / DRUGS, not to mention the tremendous financial gain to private contractors associated with WAR. War is sucking some 51% of the Federal discretionary budget. Conservatives are pitching a fit over deficit spending, yet they are the very ones so prone to war and letting the rich and corps off on taxes. "Trickle Down" Theory is an obvious and total failure in my view.

    People are talking past one another. Whatever happened to compromise which is the ideal of a divided government which represents a divided people with varying needs and ideals? I think the Founding Fathers would cry in despair at what we have come to in 200 years. It is far from the dream they had.

    Instead of focusing on the debates and trying to take a side, let me pull out my Bible and ministerial analysis to my people who read me. I think we want better than what we have right now. It will take a few articles to cover the bases.

    OUR FIRST PROBLEM is LACK OF PEACE ON EARTH

    It goes from the Churches to the Beaufort County Commissioners to Raleigh to Washington DC

    there is little to no will to have peace and community. We have become more than selfish. No society can be built on hate and small outlooks. The major problem with society in the Middle East and Indo-China is tribal warfare and outlook vs. a wider country uniting to progress.

    The US is among several countries with a big land mass and much diversity. The USSR is bigger than us, but is just as fragmented. That has led them to starvation and Czars enjoying a plush life before their Revolution. If you saw "Dr. Zhivago," it was made against that scene. The same was true of "The Sandpebbles," which is around the Chinese Rebellion. The angst and constant backward conditions were being supposedly solved with Communism. In the US we fought the Civil War over States Rights more than slavery. Its background was agrarian South with raw materials vs. industrialized North with production and ungodly profits. The cotton and iron we sold for cheap came back down south as finished goods with a 100% profit attached. The few owners were getting rich as could be. Their labor force and southern consumers were getting the screw! Immigrants lived in hovels of poverty up north. Child labor was ranpant.

    WORDS FOR PEACE

    The Hebrew word for Peace is Shalom / the Greek word is Irene (pronounced I-rain-aye). They are the basic word pictures of the Bible for mankind getting along. They have greatly different meanings to each culture.

    IRENE, for the Greek of the New Testament, meant "an absence of hostility." The Greeks enforced such with a mighty army and treaties. They let each conquered area have local rulers, but dare they arm for rebellion or against the Greek overlords, blood would quickly fill the streets from Greek weapons of war. The Greeks were highly athletic and fit. They were smart in basics of building and war machines. Temples still stand today. Their land is one to visit but they have little industry and production beyond tourists from all over the world. They are a leisure land with beautiful islands and beaches along with mountains. Their houses are huts. The mansions and wealth belong to the industrialists of shipping and trade like Aristotle Onassis. What middle class they have runs restaurants and small places for tourists to rent a room for their visit. You can hardly call them a World Power today.

    Irene means an absence of hostility only. It is temporary and hostile sides just control themselves for a bit, it seems. It is enforced by brutality and threat. It does not last through the ages and never will under the guise of "just not killing one another." You can cheat and steal with business deals---just don't outright kill in the open with blood flowing off your hands that took another man's goods and home from him. A good lawyer can always get you off.

    SHALOM is from the Hebrew language. It implies a peace with the people holding hands and loving one another. The picture is of a ball united around a core. The idealists of the early Hebrew culture saw God as that core. They had more a mystical outlook than the empirical one of the Greeks and Romans. All men seek some idol over having only a spirit. Even we Baptists worship our church buildings, organs and size as the Catholics do the Virgin Mary.

    Depending on the writer the name was Yahweh / Elohim / or a few other names. Those who say Allah is not God are stupid or uninformed. That is another name used by the Middle East from which the Jews come as well as the Muslims and Christians. Abraham is the founder of both Muslim and Hebrew nations. When you study sociology, you discover every culture has a deity of some sort. Their names differ, but a common element of mankind is a "God-shaped vacuum" as described by Blaise Pascal, the great physicist / mathematician.

    The first thing I want you to consider is: DO WE HAVE OR WANT PEACE?

    If we want it, what kind is it?

    The kind of "peace" I am seeking these days in America and in Beaufort County is not just an absence of overt hostility. The emotions raging and separating us are far from seeking WHOLENESS where all people have a part and are welcome to the table of freedom. . .
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Comments

( January 27th, 2015 @ 6:51 am )
 
I love you, man. I just wish you could have a little more Shalom and a lot less Irene. Beaufort County is a great place in so many ways.

I think we can do better than the hate-politics you sometimes promote in excess, in my view . . . Satire gives a laugh / hate gives a sword . . .
( January 26th, 2015 @ 5:25 pm )
 
Just to be perfectly clear: Everything I write - save the satire - I deeply mean. As far as the satire, I mean about 80% of that.



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