Things within our borders seem to have changed, a monumental waypoint being the amazing, some say miraculous, election of a Republican Senator in a very liberal state. We’re beginning to hear criticism of the current bunch running our country at the highest levels, even from the same media that so adored them a year or so ago. Resistance has slowed and maybe prevented the most destructive bills ever proposed in our Capitol. The pendulum, having swung too far, seems to have begun it’s swing back. The system is correcting itself. Believing in God we’re allowed to see a Divine Hand at work.
It isn’t just about the present administration though, and it isn’t just about internal matters. The previous administration had turned a blind eye to rampant illegal immigration, even encouraging it in some ways, creating demands on our tax-paid programs and our infrastructure while at the same time doing nothing to prevent the growing and inevitable popping of the huge real estate bubble, thus allowing a financial mess that will continue to dim our collective standard of living for some time to come.
If our internal matters were resolved before sunset today there are still very serious external forces turned against our nation for reasons that are irrational at best. North Korea poses a hostile threat while it continues to grow towards becoming a nuclear power. Iran does the same, a country that once was an ally and is now, at the government level, a rabid dog of America-hating. We’re involved in an Afghan tar-baby, fighting a war against an intractable and indistinguishable enemy and supporting a somewhat ineffective government there. Venezuela, for reasons unexplained, continues to vex us at every opportunity.
When forces are turned against us inexplicably, irrationally, it’s a clue that God’s protection over our nation, that Divine Providence often referred to, has been withheld.
Why? Was it the Supreme Court decision of 1963 that prohibited prayer in our public schools. Is it the continuing battles over displays of our Judeo-Christian heritage in public places? Is it because we keep our spiritual beliefs private and are ashamed to express them in public?
If the above is true there is hope for change, even in today’s local news. An Arizona legislator has proposed to post the Ten Commandments on the door of Arizona’s original 1898 State Capitol Building. After a relaxing of church/state prohibitions in a 2005 U. S. Supreme Court decision there is a chance this could happen and not be overturned in the inevitable court challenges. Similar displays have been allowed in Oklahoma and Kentucky, good steps on the road back.
It‘s time to take the words “In God We Trust” literally. Let’s express our trust that God will answer prayers and resolve, somehow, the forces arrayed against us, forces that seem impossible to resolve at the human level. “Faith” means not only praying to a Higher Power but in trusting that those prayers were heard and will be answered.
Ken Calman
Glendale, AZ
