Finding Our Courage

Every Sunday, there are a couple of televangelists who preach the Gospel for those who can’t or don’t want to go to church.  They bring the Word of God right into your living room.  It’s very convenient.

One spoke about accepting God’s forgiveness for making mistakes, but not letting anyone stop you from going where God tells you to go.  The second preacher told his congregation not to be afraid of anything and not to give into the temptations of Satan.  He noted that it’s a subject people don’t like to discuss or think about, but that he’s out there, overflowing with hatred for Man and sneering at humans when they allow themselves to be led into making mistakes.

He was so full of courage that he would be willing to stand in front of an onrushing tornado and tell it to stop in the name of the Lord.  Wow.  I don’t know that the Bible really said that.  I don’t remember where I read but I seem to recall reading something about not tempting the Lord, thy God, and that He has to let Nature to do her stuff.  When she does, God advises us to get out of her way; He’ll warn us to get out of the way but He won’t necessarily stop the devastation (unless He happens to feel like performing a miracle at that moment).

New Jerseyans are notoriously timid turtles.  Having come from the Big City, or raised by parents who did, they learned a different truth about neighbors than say, someone from Texas or Iowa; don’t get involved.  In New York City, you don’t even glance at the other people, and you must walk in lockstep with the flow or get trampled and cursed.  That is why people moved out to the suburbs.

New Jerseyans didn’t necessarily want to go all the way out to the hinterlands, even as far as that other river.  Competition for housing and high taxes forced them that far out.  Once they got here, they didn’t want to leave.  Another generation has arisen, lured by popular culture which glorifies urban culture, that is bored by all the trees, detest the noise of the singing birds, and are interested in nothing so much as shopping at the local, citified mall.

Sure, they go mountain biking and so forth – out of vanity, not a love of nature necessarily.  They want to prove how rugged they can be.  They’ll scale vertical cliffs and snowboard down icy slopes.  But ask them to stand up for freedom.  Fugeddaboutdit!  It’s not “cool” anymore.  It’s very 18^th Century.

Glenn Beck, on his television program, advised potential web designers to think in terms of neutral colors, rather than red, white, and blue, which is a turn-off, he says, to the younger generation.  Unfortunately, he’s quite right.  Our peer pressured younger generation wants to blend into the scenery.  They want to be part of the crowd; the last thing they want to do is stand out in a crowd. 

Freedom fighters are pretty much on their own.  Standing up for freedom takes a lot more guts than freewheeling down a wooded trail.  You must have more stamina and a much thicker skin.  Glenn Beck highlighted 9/12ers who had lost or endangered their jobs because of their Tea Party activities.  It’s not the kind of thing you can put on a resume.

Do we dare to stand up in public rallies (the Tea Parties have pretty much abandoned; they are, admittedly, time and labor intensive)?  Do we dare to pass out flyers?  Stand up at town hall meetings (if we can even get called upon)?  Do we dare tell the truth to a public that doesn’t want to hear it (especially in Nervous New Jersey)?  Do we dare flout an increasingly bureaucratic government?

Shall we really stand up and defy that bureaucracy?  Or do we shake our heads – “Not me” – fearing for our jobs, our homes, our families, and our lives?  Do we take the “diplomatic,” moderate approach and go along to get along?  The Jews tried it in Poland?  How did that work out for them?

Or… do we do whatever we can do, in the face of threats and ostracism?  Maybe it’s true – we’re in the path of the tornado, a raging flood of inertia, and cannot stop it.  All the same, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t rescue freedom from the path of the tornado, that we shouldn’t warn our neighbors, friends, family that the tornado is coming to rip freedom from its roots.  Did we hear right that Marysville, Ind., will get no federal help, incidentally?  They shouldn’t have to.

The Progressives worship Nature.  Perhaps they believe Nature, in the form of tornados and floods is doing their work for them.  Once the houses are swept from the Plains, the government can go in and reclaim all that land as government property.  They can reclaim all the houses in Pompton Lakes either condemned by the Plume or the Flood.  That’s Agenda 21/Smart Growth/Sustainable Development.

Fighting Agenda 21 is probably the best way to engage Closet Conservatives because this plan hits them right where they live.  You can hide from foreign aid to Middle East nations, the contraception controversy, Occupy Wall Street, and Islamic terrorists out in the suburbs.

But Agenda 21 is coming for you turtles out there.  Sticking your head in your shells won’t save you.