[image: Sailboats, BW, 2009, JA Van Devender]
James 1:6–8 (NKJV)
6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
I have spent some time on the water in a sailboat having been an Officer in Charge of an individual boat for two summers in the Naval Academy's Off Shore Sailing program. That was quite an experience for me and one that I will look back on with pleasure for as long as I live.
There is something "elemental" about sailing. Sailing sailors refer to motorboats as "stinkpots'" or some other derogatory term because, fundamentally, they get where they want to go efficiently, quickly and with noise. Sailing is not "efficient" in terms of going somewhere in the shortest distance over the ground and when you consider that a "fast" sailboat of medium size is somewhat slower than your average bicycle, then "quickness" is not an option. But when push comes to shove, if I am going to be on the water (when there is a breeze blowing- when you are becalmed a sailboat is miserable), I would rather be sailing.
When I speak of sailing as "elemental" I am referring to the facts of sailing. In a motorboat man transcends the elements. Within certain limits he does not care from which direction the wind blows. When you are traveling at 30 knots, a 2 knot ebbing tide really doesn't matter all that much. In a sailboat being aware of the direction of wind and tide can make the difference between an enjoyable afternoon and a very frustrating one. So, when sailing, one is much more in tune with the "elements" and in many ways that constitutes its charm... if you are disposed to that kind of thing.
That is somewhat the case in the photo above. The boat on the right is well set on a "port tack" - the fore-sail and main-sail are each pulling taut and the boat is moving crisply through the water in a very efficient (for a sailboat) manner. There's not a lot of wind blowing so they have a lot of canvas up and the boat is "alive." Theres a very pleasant trill or vibration that sets up in a sail boat when the helm is balanced (low forces on the tiller, the foresail and mainsail are keeping her on heading) and the water is gurgling past the rudder. Sailor and sailboat are a team and the cool wind and pleasant spray combine in a deeply satisfying manner. This is "sailing".
The other boat is, if I am not badly mistaken, "hove-to". (It could also possibly be just a poorly executed "coming about" by an inexperienced crew.) The foresail is flattened against the mast and the mainsail is "out". In this configuration the boat is prevented from coming "up into the wind" by the foresail, and not allowed to "fall off" the wind by the mainsail. It is stuck. It's not going forward and is at the mercy of the wind and tide. If it has plenty of room to leewared (down wind) it is in no great danger and sometimes you want to do this in order to do some maintenance or some other task. But it is a very uncomfortable configuration. There is no thrill in the boat... it's just banging about on the waves... flopping around in the wind... see-sawing back and forth between the opposing pulls of the mainsail and foresail. The boat cannot "make up its mind" and get underway. "It is double-minded" and hence at the mercy of the elements rather than in tune with them.
This is kind of what James was talking about in the passage above. When a man, or a society, or a government, or a culture, or a people, cannot make up its mind about what it really wants to do, what course it is going to resolutely follow, that man, society, government, culture or people are adrift. They will rock uncomfortably back and forth in the waves, perhaps with destructive results, ... they will experience yaws in heading and passing moments of thinking that things are really going to "change" and that they are going to start moving, only to have the heading suddenly yaw back the otherway in a somewhat sickening fashion.
We see this across the board in our society as Americans have lost their "bearings." With no clear idea of what it means to be an "American" we flap around uncomfortably. We like the idea of freedom but we don't want to be bothered in it. We want people to like us but they don't and we don't know what to do about that. We have no clear idea of "right and wrong" and yet we reject any "authority" that tries to establish that very standard.
Evangelical Christians are not only 'not exempt' from this circumstance, we are often the clearest illustration of it. We go to church on Sunday and we are (hopefully) confronted with an authoritative word from God that calls us to a specific "tack", a new "path" that we are to walk. And there is a strong pull exerted on us to do that, ... to "go that way." But then we walk out the church doors and before we even get home, the "real world" pulls us another way and we find ourselves dithering, or trying to find a middle road, or just succombing to the powerful temptations that Satan flings at us.
For all practical purposes we are "hove-to." Now, if we are experiencing that because we have just been confronted with the stark difference between "God's way" as it is taught in Scriptures and that "way" we have been raised to think was how things "worked," then, this condition is rightly used by giving us an opportunity for study, introspection, maintenance, and whatever else has to be done before we choose which "tack" we are going to take. But it has to be "temporary." There comes a time when "studying the problem" has to end and "solving the problem" has to be done.
There is and can be no compromise between God and Mammon. If God is God... serve Him. If Baal is god (and he is not), then serve him. There can be no "life" when you are stuck in between. There will be no self-respect nor sense of movement. The dark hours of the night will still be scary and the confusion in the world will cloud your every decision.
Oh, we can put on a show... we can put on an act... but down deep we are still dithering.
Cutting the Gordian knot in life is to choose... and to act on that decision... and then to ride the waves with the boat trilling under you until you see where that tack leads. It may be right onto the rocks in a blackened shore you did not foresee... and then you will know the truth about that decision. In its own way that is progress. But, choosing Christ and His Righteousness and the "Way" of His Kingdom, will not end that way. It may be a scary ride at times but it will prove to be the right one though sometimes there will be doubts.
But the important thing is this: we must choose... we must stop dithering between two headings... it is not only uncomfortable, it is guaranteed to ultimately be our ruin.
Now What? ..... The Unwinding of America
Isaiah 17:12 (NKJV)
12 Woe to the multitude of many people Who make a noise like the roar of the seas, And to the rushing of nations That make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!
I'm reading "The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America", by George Packer. I am not far enough into it to give a recommendation one way or the other but his introduction to the work is intriguing.
"If you were born around 1960 or afterward, you have spent your adult life in the vertigo of (the unwinding of the coil that held Americans together). ... Alone on a landscape without solid structures, American have to improvise their own destines, plot their own stories of success and salvation. ... In the unwinding, everything changes and nothing lasts, except for the voices, American voices. ..... "
I will find out soon enough what Packer makes of this observation, but standing with one foot hooked on a wooden fence rail and pondering the road angling out of sight behind the tree line, I could sense the truth of his initial observation.
The world... our world.... our country... is in flux and I have the impression that it is barreling down a road, the end of which is not known. There is, on the one hand, in those who are driving with such reckless abandon, an apparent exhiliration in their freedom to do so. I can almost imagine a car-full of partying men and women, the top down on their convertible, laughing in the rush of cool air, with the music blaring and a bottle being passed around (with the driver taking a swing now and then), flying along the road raising a great cloud of dust in their wake. You know... you just know... that there is trouble ahead ... but neither you nor they can make it out. It's hidden out there beyond the trees. Perhaps a big pot-hole... or a fallen tree blocking the road.... or a large moose or deer which suddenly bounds into their path. They are reckless... suppressing their fear and their common sense in self-deluding preoccupation with the moment.
That's the trouble with the tearing down of institutions. You never know what's going to replace it, or even whether the rubble will just lie there forever.
What Packer notices is that in the past 50 years there has been a deliberate dismantling of those cultural structures which together constituted the unity and identity, both good and bad, of the American (here read - "United States") people. My preliminary opinion about what Packer says is that he fails to distinguish the "evolutionary" changes that transpired before this period and the deliberate, catastrophic nature of the recent past. There is no doubt that the American journey from 1776 (and even before) through 1950 was one of change through various phases, but with an emphasis on an underlying continuity. The rural independence of colonial times necessarily morphed as the forces of industrialization and urbanization moved into prominence. But up until about 1960 there was, even in the face of great internal differences, a common identity that was recognized even if not clearly defined. Americans were "Americans" and just accepted that "fact." Internal squabbles were just that... internal and it was expected, indeed demanded, that "we" together, work them out. No outside help was desired or tolerated.
This sense of uniqueness and identity is that which has been systematically dismantled in such a thorough going manner that it plays almost no role in the widest community of "citizens" today. This deconstruction of our identity has been fomented among our academic elite, embraced by the "young Turks" who swallowed (mostly without question) their ideas, and imposed on the community by politicians who used the tide to float their own boats.
"It's got to change" has been the cry long before it was undertaken as a political slogan in 2008. And there was much that needed changing, but there was also much that needed preserving. I am reminded of the French Revolution and their whole sale burning of the corrupt society that had inflicted so much harm on the population over the years. The blood lust that was let loose was anarchist to its core. That same sense of anarchy is motivating much of the tearing down of institutions today. There is a blind hope that down the road something better will be waiting... and so the car hurtles down that road at an ever increasing pace. But neither those driving the car or those sitting in it have anything more than a pipe-dream fantasy of what will be the outcome of their strategy.
Perhaps it is time for all sense of "nationalism" to be discarded. Perhaps it is time to put together a world society that is linked by bonds of commerce and mutual interest that minimize any distinctions of geography or ethnicity. Perhaps.... but that social order will not just "emerge." There are no evolutionary "forces" at work such that a better world is predetermined by our own social DNA. Destroying the fabric of one social order does not, in and of itself, guarantee that a better one will replace it.
The lust for power will always dominate politics. The lust for power is the internal motivation that seeks to cast aside the bonds of cultural unity, constitutional government, checks and balances in lawful administration. As institutions fall the awareness grows that "we can do anything we want!" This awareness is not tempered by the qualifying phrase - "in tearing things down." A man free of constraint can tear down a wall with only a sledgehammer in his hand. A man free of constraint cannot so readily build a better wall to replace it.
Right now we are surrounded by multitudes of people who are making noises like "the rushing of the sea" (Isa. passage above). A "rushing sea" is chaotic by definition. It crashes on the shore with great destructive power. If it is not regulated... brought under control... it will spend its force and only leave debris behind.
It's time for a dose of sanity. It's time for our politicans to step back and look at what's happening. It's time for our citizenry to say "enough change"... let's get our breath... let's see what needs to be patched and what needs to be built back up. That's what we need.... but that car is racing down the road and I am afraid that the occupants are too self-absorbed to hear or care to hear what a bystander, standing with his foot on the rail, has to say.
Posted by Gadfly on June 20, 2013 at 09:33 AM in Commentary, Culture, Movies, etc., Education | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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