Good Monday morning! Tired of the cold yet? We haven't even started winter as of today. It's been cold for a couple of weeks now and we might feel a bit worn out when we think that all of winter has yet to begin (next week it will arrive). The good thing about the arrival of winter? Christmas comes right on its heels. Like our trials in this life, God has something great waiting just a short time after the difficult season begins. We don't know how long the trying time will last, but we do know that God is with us.
Did you catch the 60 Minutes interview with our President yesterday? I feel the same way about the bonus-baby bankers in the bailed out banks. Why do they not get it that some of us might feel more than a little angry when a firm getting billions in aid from the taxpayers pays out huge bonuses? Perhaps it's their worshipping at the shrine of money. In this modern world, two gods from old have made a strong comeback.
These gods have always been worshipped, in some empires and kingdoms more than others. However, today they have made a comeback in the land of the free. Money and knowledge are those 'gods' that I am talking about this morning. We live in a world of highly paid entertainers, athletes, bankers, and businessmen. Yet, most folks in these professions are not highly or even moderately paid. You might wonder about the bankers and business persons, but there are far more of these folks in small and medium sized institutions than the fat cats we hear about on Wall Street. Even in the bailed out firms that we can complain about, I'm sure there are hundreds or thousands of folks not making the huge bonuses and working under a modest salary. But now I'm drifting away from the point.
Any one of us can be caught up in the religion of money or knowledge. It's fun to know more than other folks and it's fun to have lots of loot to spend. Neither is evil of itself, but both can seduce a person to worshipping something we should be grateful to God for having. People can make a living as researchers, librarians, professors, teachers, and other knowledge professionals without worshipping knowledge. However, some do fall into making knowledge their god, just as some fall into the dreadful trap of making money their god.
Last night I dreamed along these lines. In the dream, I had bought a different house, relatively new but I wasn't the first owner. There was no furniture in the living room or dining room, which was a good thing because some of the ceiling had started to fall in from water damage. A tall friend had come by and he started poking the drop-ceiling tiles to check for roof leaks. Above one, he found a beautiful Cabela's blanket. Perhaps my covers had slipped in the real world at this time because that blanket looked mighty fine to my dreaming mind. I put the blanket on my bed and talked about how much I appreciated the previous owners leaving that behind. In effect, I put "mine" on that blanket. My thoughts on waking up this morning were to question why my dreaming self behaved so badly in not thinking about how I could return that property to the rightful owner!
Those who worship at the shrine of money find some way to claim more and more for themselves. Those who feel that the big bonus checks should still come to them from that money we the taxpayers loaned them might have made the mistake of putting "mine" on something that they may not deserve in light of their firm's current position. You and I might wonder why a pay czar, as the position is known, would even be necessary. We might think that if we had a job in that bailed out firm we would be ashamed of needing government money to stay afloat and be working hard to pay the money back as soon as possible. We might even take a pay cut, if we earned more than we needed, to help the company get that loan paid off. We like to think that... maybe we would and maybe we wouldn't. It's hard to put yourself in another's position; or perhaps I should say, it's all too easy to put yourself in another's position and say we would do this or that. :-)
That's a lot to think about on a Monday morning! I am glad that the president we elected understands that something might be wrong with millions in bonuses being given out at bailed out banks and companies. As a taxpayer, I want that money back in my government and am kind of sad that some folks still have their hand out for bonus money from the loan proceeds. As a Christian, I also wonder if I would behave in a manner that Christ would approve of if I were employed in that bailed out firm.
Pray for another Great Awakening, I do think that our country needs it.
Bucky
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