It’s been nearly 7 years. I’ve been many places. I’ve seen many things… some beautify but even more make ugly, beyond all comprehension, what was intended for us.
I know in my heart that God didn’t have this in mind for His creation; not the rancor nor the bitterness. Not the cynicism nor the tyranny nor the oppression of His children at the hands of man. Who *are* these self-aggrandizers that would presume to displace our God from our hearts and minds, intending to insert themselves there, instead, in that place where only God should be? Who are these children of God – our own brothers and sisters – that they should levy such fines against the Nations as the murder of the unborn, or the oppression of the helpless, or the humiliation and death of the weak and the submissive as our price to pay for giving them such power and control over our lives?
I have been struggling with these (and many other) questions for over a year now, and I keep coming back to the same answer no matter how many different ways I ask: ‘Haystack’ has outlived his usefulness, and has, perhaps – dare I be so bold – likely outstayed his welcome in this selfish and short-sighted world of politics & punditry and animosity and angst. I’m no longer ‘that guy’ and I can’t be true to myself or the journey that lies ahead for me if I keep trying to be.
We bury the moniker today; I can’t do this anymore… it’s too much attention to the unimportant and, in the larger scheme of things, the irrelevant.
It’s too much wasted time.
There is a higher calling for us than worrying ourselves overmuch about the words and deeds of man; a covenant that rises above all others – between us and God – should never have been allowed to take a back seat to the fleeting fancy of the self-important. We made this mess… we assigned these ‘leaders’ the task of thinking and doing for us so that we wouldn’t have to for ourselves. The rise and fall and ruin of generations past bears witness to the folly of such madness in men.
And God is watching.
Be you Jew, Christian, or Muslim, your God is calling you. We may differ on many things, even things over which we have fought for thousands of years, but on the singularly fundamental matter at hand is the one thing on which we all agree: there is one God. He is our God and we are His people. Listen for Him. And answer Him. And DO for Him. Find your Torah. Find your Catholic or your Protestant Bible. Find your Qur’an. Find these things and return to what they say in your ears and in your hearts. And, remember your Father and His Covenant and give back to Him what you’ve allowed to be taken from Him long enough; take back what He gave you and give Him back what is His.
I’m moving on now; may I find you in Canaan in peace.
1 Now the LORD said unto Abram: ‘Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto the land that I will show thee.
2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing.
3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse; and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’
4 So Abram went, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him; and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.
5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.
6 And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem, unto the terebinth of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.
7 And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said: ‘Unto thy seed will I give this land’; and he builded there an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.
May God be with each of you, and if He is not today, may you find your way back to Him. He is waiting for you there.