A Land of Fools

First I must apologize to all Fools as I am not using the word in the positive sense i.e. being a fool for Christ is a good thing and the fool archetype is a positive one in my experience - although it is rather hard on the ego.

I have just returned from attending a preaching workshop at Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids Michigan. It was a wonderful experience which should help my preaching greatly - that of course remains to be seen with the proof being in the sermon puddings. That is a topic for another post.

This was during the great debt ceiling crisis that has been consuming our friends to the south. That seems to have been resolved as I write this (Civic Holiday Monday ). However, it is quite likely not for the better and only temporarily. The U.S. seems to be a land of silos with different groups talking with only the people in their own silo and lobbing grenades at the other silos.

The new channels such as Fox, CNN, and MSNBC were all hunkering down and talking the party line with little concern for other points of views or even facts. The position taken by each silo was predictable and laboured and did not change regardless of the developments in the crisis. It pains me to say that this was as true for MSNBC as it was for Fox. There seemed to be no effort to consider the other side(s) of the issue. They were talking to the converted and everyone was signing form the same songbook which was based primarily on the impending Armageddon that would occur if each side didn't get their own way. Unfortunately I didn't have access to PBS to see their take on the crisis.

I must confess that my view from the outside is slanted towards to Democratic Party position and I can't see why Americans do not want to pay for the services that are provided by their government(s). I don't see how the country can climb out of their current debt cavern using only reduced spending. That being said the futrue of of the U.S. does not look good unless that can build a bridge between the silos and come to the realization that compromise is not a dirty word.

I hope Leonard Cohen was correct when he wrote "democracy is coming to the U.S.A." because it doesn't seem to be a working democracy at the moment. As Leonard says it is the land of the best and the worst. This past week has been for worse and not for better.