4.08.2005
Lament for the Dying Hippies
The first order of business in this post is to issue a public apology for some of my recent behavior on this and other blogs. I am an opinionated, critical, sarcastic asshole, and much of what I've said in my posts and subsequent comments has been demeaning and uncharitable. I regret any role I've played in inciting any feelings of animosity or hurt.
It is rightly said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
My intentions in posting some of the things I do IS to incite debate, but civil debate. Furthermore, I strive to prod those whose misguided, but overall good intentions, are leading them down the broad, smooth way to their own destruction into a sincere reflection on what's really important in this life. God, family, country and service.
What I have lacked is compassion for the plight of these poor souls. For that, I am deeply sorry.
It was with the best of intentions that our fathers, fresh from the trials of the Great Depression and WWII, produced and indulged the largest, most self-centered and spoiled generation our country has ever known. As this generation swarmed into adolesence and young adulthood in the 1960's, our country was faced with a reckoning of the sins of our forefathers from generations past. And these youngsters, some of them now grandparents, had their idealism and energy harnessed into a vital and imposing social force. Like their parents, they had good intentions. After all, world peace, free love and getting back to nature all sound wonderful, don't they? And the institutionalized racism of Jim Crow was a great injustice, was it not?
I came into this world at the tail end of this population explosion, born into a moral vacuum of parental neglect and guilt-induced indulgence. Into this vacuum stepped the forces of consumerism, materialism and hedonism, all cloaked in the 'virtues' for which the '60's are nostagically remembered. My parents, like those of many of my peers, espoused a hollow morality, based on status, appearances and social graces. I, like many of my peers, took this all too obvious hypocrisy and used it as excuse to reject the Judeo-Christianity ethos out of hand. It was all about the sex, drugs and rock-n-roll, baby.
Fortunately, God chose to have mercy on me, allowing me to come to the end of myself by the end of the '70's. Having stripped away the facade of my 'high' ideals, I was given the sight to see the reality of this world, my place in it, and my only hope to experience real love and peace. Not just some drug-induced fantasy, but deep, penetrating, restorative illumination.
It's hard for me to remember sometimes how radical was the change in my thinking. Like many of those with whom I debate in cyberspace, I bought unquestioningly into the whole liberal, hedonist agenda. I had no doubts or concerns about the life I was living until God starting dealing with me and putting situations and people in my life to get my attention.
It hit me hard a couple of nights ago as I was reading John 6. Verse 44 records Jesus saying, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him..." No wonder I've been feeling as if I'm beating my head against the wall and getting very little satisfaction! It's because I am!
I don't want to win debates here, or beat down and humiliate liberals. I want to see people get free from the anger, bitterness and demanding expectations that life be something different than what it is. I just need to stop trying to convince corpses to get up and live.
What I heard this morning on the ride into work from a guy by the name of Dr. Michael Yusef made much more sense. Apparently, there was a massive revival around about 1904 in the UK and US. Businesses would close in the middle of the day so that community leaders could gather and pray and weep over the sorry state of the nation. Newspapers began to publish the names of new converts. The city of Atlanta recorded over 70,000 such conversions. Can you imagine? The thought of a major metropolitan newspaper deeming Christian revival newsworthy is mind-boggling in and of itself.
So I'm asking my brothers and sisters who read and participate in this blog to join me in praying and mourning for those lost souls who stop by once in a while to denounce our beliefs and lifestyle. They really need us to show them the better way, and all too often I lapse into arrogance without realizing that they have no capacity to know what we know. Neither did we, once upon a time.
I stand ashamed to have forgotten how desparately I needed what I was graciously given, but did not earn.
- posted by The Drake @ 12:23 PM
Comments:
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"convince corpses to get up and live."
as long as we are free in this great country, each of us awakens with a choice each morning; live or go through the motions. most tend to go through the motions ( i.e. corpses ) accepting things as "the ways things are."
when you have Christ in your life and at the center of your life. you begin to realize that He gave us power. by trying to live and follow the teachings of Christ makes you get up and live!!!!
i never accept situations as the be all end all. i do ask myself WWJD? and you know what? it changes everything. it is truly amazing.
people look at me and have to wonder, "is this guy for real?" all i can say is live HIS way. and the rest takes care of itself.
no drug, alcohol, sexual experience, amount of $$$ will get you there.........
this corpse found this beginning at the age of 25. damn am i lucky. i'll give it my all to lead by example. i fight on and sometimes fail, but my faith is my strength.
and that is the gospel.....
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as long as we are free in this great country, each of us awakens with a choice each morning; live or go through the motions. most tend to go through the motions ( i.e. corpses ) accepting things as "the ways things are."
when you have Christ in your life and at the center of your life. you begin to realize that He gave us power. by trying to live and follow the teachings of Christ makes you get up and live!!!!
i never accept situations as the be all end all. i do ask myself WWJD? and you know what? it changes everything. it is truly amazing.
people look at me and have to wonder, "is this guy for real?" all i can say is live HIS way. and the rest takes care of itself.
no drug, alcohol, sexual experience, amount of $$$ will get you there.........
this corpse found this beginning at the age of 25. damn am i lucky. i'll give it my all to lead by example. i fight on and sometimes fail, but my faith is my strength.
and that is the gospel.....
# posted by 
: 4/08/2005 12:47:00 PM
: 4/08/2005 12:47:00 PM<< Home
