By Jerry Emerson
There will always be evil, wrongs, racism, unfairness, prejudice, special privileges, etc. The question is not how to go about eliminating these evils in the world, …
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By Jerry Emerson
There will always be evil, wrongs, racism, unfairness, prejudice, special privileges, etc. The question is not how to go about eliminating these evils in the world, but how do we handle them?
The Pharaohs, Marx, Lenin, Hitler and many, many others sought to overcome evil through the efforts of man. This is wasted effort. Man is basically bad, so you will not change this through his efforts. The only thing you can change is yourself. What makes you think that me changing my outlook will motivate you or anybody else to change their behavior?
Don’t we see this ever-present evil in us, when in our sweet little children at 2 or 3, they say – no, they scream – “I want to do it myself”? Don’t you see it in the horrible meltdowns or temper tantrums at 11 or 12 years? Or in the teens, when those great kids demand, “I’m my own person”? Or even still in me, when I respond angrily to another underline on my “honey do” list by my loved one, “I told you I’d do it”?
The solution to this evil in all of us is to find a nice, cool, level spot outside, draw a small circle on the ground, get inside the circle and pray, “Dear God, please change everything inside this circle” (credit to Vernon McGee).
Is it possible our very, very, young, experimental nation is having its own temper tantrum? Fortunately, we are seeing some calm-thinking folks, always just a few – Black, white or whatever – seeing the necessity for responsible change to be in ourselves. Hopefully, this current tantrum or revolution will be blessed like ours in 1776 and not cursed like when the French tried to copy the Americans. In France, the revolters ended up on the very guillotine on which they chose to punish the ones they revolted against. The Russian revolution never resulted in justice for the people even down to today. This is the fate of anarchy even if or when it is termed “anti-fascist.”
So, back to our children and how they act. If you tell your children there is no way they can prosper because the white man, the government, the boss, the officer (police or military), the Jew, the Muslim, the Christian, etc., will always prevail over them, then you erase all hope in them. Erasing hope is the opposite of telling your children they can prevail through right living and hard work, that is unless you send them to a university that again repeats the theme that they can never make it on their own.
In summary, all the bishops, presidents, professors, mob bosses, corporate boards, preachers, protesters, community organizers, playwrights, grandparents, et al., will never erase sin in the world. You young people (parents) haven’t yet had the chance to say to your children, when you are tired of explaining the why of things and in total frustration with their whining, “But that’s not fair!” with “The world is not fair.” If you haven’t heard that expression, then I’m sorry for the poor parenting, teaching or example you’ve had. As for me, an old man with grandchildren, I think I see so clearly now why we call God the parent, the father. His guidance in the owner’s manual is exactly the opposite of the bad tendency within ourselves and myself to say, “I know better.”
Well, that’s my rant, and I’ll close with the Amish saying “We grow too old smart.”
Jerry Emerson lives in Dover.