Something's Happening Here!

The song begins: "Something's happening here....Stop, what's that sound, everybody look what's going down". Echoes of the 60's: civil rights, Vietnam, women's liberation, sexual freedom, and.... Recently, Frank Rich, columnist for the New York Times, commented that he is seeing parallels between now and the early 1960s. People rising up to support or protest social change, and the increasingly violent temper of the nation.

Looking and listening to the raucus screaming at town hall meetings, many people not even wanting dialog, but only to shut down the conversation. People bringing automatic rifles and small arms to Obama events. Shouts of Nazi, Hitler, and the infamous T-4 euthanasia program of the SS, the increasing number of hate groups as reported by the Southern Poverty Law Center ("Hate Groups Reach Record 926"), and the general breakdown of civility in our national character, bi-partisanship existing in name only, and some crazy wearing a T-shirt using a Thomas Jefferson quote about the need to "water the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots and tyrants", makes "Something's happening here" a reason to pay attention, real quick! I must confess to waking up most days and wondering if President Obama is still alive. The crazies are hunting.

The reasons are many: Obama and family are Black, unemployment and underemployment, huge national debt, two wars of choice, lack of consumer confidence, no health insurance or inadequate insurance, and energy needs. There is national "dis-ease". Does this sound like the Colorado Confession?

I am reminded of the creation in Genesis. Creation happened to quell the chaos in the universe. Creation brought order and purpose into being. Likewise, Good Friday led to Easter, the cross to glory. It seems evil needs to be lanced, and there is no easy way through. It is like a national C.P.E. session (Clinical Pastoral Education), when healing happens through the unearthing of the pain. Or, the age of the prophets is stirring the cauldron of justice. It is interesting that the OT prophets had their day amidst the need for national cleansing. The status quo needed to be rattled because there was "something rotten in [America]". Remember "Sounds of Silence": "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls, within the sounds of silence". Today, the words of the prophets are being written in hospital emergency wards, insurance company meeting rooms, idle hands in foreclosed homes, and citadels of power where politics and ideology trump compassion and justice.

The stirrings are necessary for us to engage the issues of the future. The stirrings are the rising aches of souls and the confessions of truth layed bare. For there to be light we need to live the naked darkness. It is time to listen well, to feel the hell, and ring the bell of justice.

Peace!
Ron