Absolutely! We’ll all SEE the advancing threatening economic stampede if by courage we are willing to look!
Reality check moment, ponder the question, “Who will SEE THROUGH the “interruption?” Will the want satisfying by credit card climate folk take a look? Or, will the phenomena be left to the perspective of an advancing desperation for survival battle for the masses currently locked in a harm’s way struggle to pay to eat, purchase a prescription, gas up to drive to work, or mail a mortgage payment on time?
Personally, I did not experience The Great Depression of 1929. Born in 1941, I grew up within the grace of parents who made their way through and gave me their hard earned values. So, as a first generation post-depression child and adolescent, the timeframe 1941-1959 and the accompanying restricted lifestyle allows me some credentials of being at least one rail up on the fence to offer a personal perspective as together we traverse along and through this never expected trial.
Basically, each person’s reactions/response depends on personal perception and individual attitude. Adjustment is the name of the game, and each player’s best hope depends on keeping step with reality throughout the tournament.
Settling in for the Season
A certainty — seasons change and eventually end!
Meanwhile, chop the timeframe into one day at a time. Discover your American ingenuity, and attack the larger problem. For instance, less food, eat less and triumph over obesity. Remember American ingenuity learned in the 1930’s gave an edge to American servicemen during World War II. Meanwhile, connect kids to the sources. Savor the teaching time to surprise your youngsters—milk comes from cows rather than the cooler at Kroger. Further, this season may be preparation for an even more stressful era ahead.
Validate an Old Aborted Word—Need
Enter a store, grocery or otherwise, wander, muse, meditate, touch, examine products at various angles. This ambulatory selection process and the plethora of goods befuddles the brain. Behold eight brands, 24 varieties by style, comfort range, or scent of toilet tissue. The same avails be it laundry soap or spaghetti sauce. Confusion creeps in to compete with marketing and the conscious element of need surrenders to the yearning to satisfy want, and the cycle continues. A life only by need alone time looms ahead. Fair warning.
Honor Personal Limits
Go ahead. Adopt this double first cousin to need. Contrary to some economic planner huskers, credit will continue to play an essential role in finances in both families and corporate America. Sadly, apparently, only now in the limited availability and reduction of credit will many folk discover a harsh lesson—credit is not a license, and abuse of the privilege proves to be disastrous. My wife and I share one credit card with a mutually agreed upon limit. Each month we pay off all charges, having periodically reviewed the growing balance throughout the month. Such responsibility requires discipline, a trait to be learned, having no reserved spot in your gene pool. An even more threatening calamity may loom ahead for many people maxed out on credit cards who now have no recourse but to adjust to cash living and credit card interest payments.
Live on the Stuff Called Cash
Little pennies, round nickels, thin dimes, flat quarters, bulky half-dollars, and U.S. bills of various denomination possess buying power. Paying cash allows you to own your purchase. Ownership! At least second cousin to cleanliness which is next to Godliness. We just may be on the brink of an exciting season of ownership with only a warranty for paperwork. As an owner, you use your item, play with it, break it, even loan it. Who cares? It’s yours. In a cash climate you can learn to wait. So wait patiently, save up for a needy purchase, and expect real appreciation—a Dutch uncle to gratitude.
See Beyond Yourself
Okay, my personal parson side now kicks into the discussion. The current ongoing season of adjustment to the crisis points me directly to the reality I am His creation. Personal inalienable rights include caretaker of His creation. The assumptive-presumptive participation in enough and more for all and forever mindset has to go. We can no longer afford the popular American flaunting of plenty custom.
Our Tennessee Baptist churches must encounter the choice to be or not to be Christian as never before in our life time.
Sometime, out yonder, beyond the prevailing financial interruption folk will welcome better times with the question, “Who was there alongside with me through the era of hunger, lost job, loss of home, wonder for tomorrows, and sight of pain in the eyes of my family?” The local church that chose to come alongside in a Christ-like manner to aid these hurting folk will be the communities of faith that expand the meaning of salvation. This in no way means financial bailout by churches alone. While financial assistance can be of great help, I speak more of church folk offering encouragement, a new sense of fellowship and community, and a sense of camaraderie to work together through the era. If the church succumbs to a do it for you attitude, we lend our efforts toward either crippling or paralyzing folk with good self-respect who need to know they are not alone in their struggles. The Tennessee Baptist Convention One Servant Family staff hurt with our church folk and are seeking God’s guidance to use their energies to be alongside our churches as they minister in shepherding the local communities. While we together know not what we may do, may we be together open to seek to know what our Heavenly Father wills us to do as we bear one another’s burdens together.
Reviewing my own writing, I think my simple message is all about sensitivity to care enough to bear witness to my Father God who carries His people through, often in the strength and action of other persons. May God’s blessings, whatever He chooses them to be, be ours to know through this time.
“Sometimes on the mount where the sun shines so bright,
God leads His dear children along;
Sometimes in the valley in the darkest of night,
God leads His dear children along.
Some thro’ the waters, some thro’ the flood,
Some thro’ the fire, but all thro’ the Blood;
Some thro’ great sorrow, but God gives a song,
In the night season and all the day long.”
Notes
G.A. Young, “God Leads Us Along” (Kansas City: Lillenas Publishing Co., 1931)
