So it feels like summer. What have we been through, in getting to here? My elation is tempered. The UMM graduation is past. We might notice less activity around town. There is so often an excuse for diminished activity.
The restaurant where I often dine Sunday afternoon seemed not quite as busy as usual. I was wondering if finally we see people spooked some by inflation. However, a person of great wisdom who sat next to me at counter thought not. "People are going to the lake now," she said.
If it isn't one thing, it's something else.
In the winter the snowbirds are gone. These are affluent people who could support local businesses like restaurants with their assets. It has been a long time since the Cyrus cafe was operating. My family and I went there often on Sundays after I left the Morris newspaper. Then it closed, and a popular explanation I heard was that local snowbirds had "migrated," as it were.
So I'll repeat, there's always an excuse. People and activities get thinned here in Motown. Then we hear explanations. People find better things to do.
Once when reflecting on church attendance issues, I pondered how congregations are aging. So you'd think that the older element, at least, would be a reliable pillar for our churches to keep going. Not so simple. I will remind: Church stalwarts are often gone from the pews because they're "visiting grandchildren." So nice to do that, of course.
But this community needs to keep an eye on its viability. We must present stronger reasons for people to be here, to enjoy being here, to want to be here. I repeat: to actually want to be here. Seems like an elementary suggestion, doesn't it?
We are not a lakes recreation community here in Morris. Our city leaders tried to get an extension to the biking/walking trail but a grant approval was needed. It was unsuccessful. How unfortunate. You can make new friends along the trail including people's dogs! Henry David Thoreau would appreciate.
The softball complex is a new facility. Notice that I didn't call it an asset, just a facility. For it to be an asset, it should be designed in such a way that events can be held attracting people from a wide radius. If we were to even attempt that now, people would leave in a complaining frame of mind, because fans are basically screwed there. I confess to having written too much on this topic - time to zip it here, except that I care how our tax dollars are being spent. Or donors' dollars, people who may have expected more. Bring your own chair and sit out by the outfield fence. Okay.
Church this morning: Sunday. We had a fill-in pastor whose words can be very captivating. He was very frank in how he prefaced remarks about current issues. He was frank in his defensiveness, and this is totally understandable. Consider: one's Christian faith is a foundation for how to live with consideration for others. Current issues are a sticking point because of our political discourse. So the man at the podium today wondered how we might weigh flashpoint issues in the context of Christianity.
Gun control? How apt to discuss this now. Any pastor ought to seize on this and have his words taken seriously. As long as the pastor is sincere, those words should be taken as constructive. The pastor's words today indicated, quite obviously, it's not so simple. There are churches, perhaps the plurality, where the pastor will stand up there and say gun control isn't the answer. He might suggest that society is just sick and needs to turn to God more. But, no government involvement in limiting guns.
Why? Because there are a list of issues where the conservative or evangelical churches prescribe the "right" answer. If a pastor at such a church says the "right" things, i.e. to keep money coming into church coffers, he is not being "political." Get it?
But is it political for a pastor at a less rigid church to stand up there and imply that maybe we must weigh greater limitations on gun access? Yes, via the "government." And people of the conservative political stripe recoil from government involvement. It is a defining quality of the Republican Party that it does not want people to like government.
Climate change is the kind of massive issue that can only be tackled by big government. So the people of whom I speak here are skeptical, being led by GOP leaders who "know what to say," i.e. "our climate has always been changing."
Let's understand that climate change is "extreme weather." Do you think the Morris area ever had a "derecho" prior to our recent one? I don't think so.
So much of Christianity is now co-opted by the self-styled conservative crowd that became enraptured by this amoral grifter of a human being named Donald Trump. It will not abate. The January 6 committee ought to be closing in on him. I see no such inevitability. We are naive if we think good will always prevail over bad, as if it's a matter of destiny. It will only happen if society coalesces around the good and the benevolent. I do not see this happening.
The January 6 committee faces headwinds. One of these days I'll stop following the news. I am too scared.
My church of First Lutheran of the ELCA isn't enough to counter the prevailing direction of Christianity now, I fear. We sort of cower amidst it all.
Is this the crux?
So many angry older white people across rural America. This is disgusting because our nation has been so generous with its older folk. Social Security is very generous. I began thinking about this a few years ago when I noticed so many of the sweet elderly crowd filing into restaurants for holiday buffets where the prices were in the stratosphere. These people thought nothing of it. They paid with perfect aplomb and moved on, not a worry in the world apparently.
But think of the young people completing high school today, the ones with no special connections for getting established. Think of the adversity and challenges they confront. It is more than daunting.
And meanwhile the older people are the ones so inclined to support Trump, support the Republicans, and to have listened to Rush Limbaugh. They think the world is going to hell? You could argue that for the 1940s.
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| Senator Ben Sasse, NE |
BTW how often do you hear the term "geriatrics" any more? Remember how the Lawrence Welk TV show was sponsored by "Geritol?"
Speaking to his own GOP, Senator Sasse says "we Republicans, we have a big choice to make. We can either continue to drift as a party that exists increasingly as a vehicle for the grievances of the angriest, oldest folk, or we can be a future-oriented party of 2030, with politics centered on the future of work and the future of war."
I'm inclined to do a Hail Mary as I consider what the January 6 committee is attempting to do in coming weeks.
Addendum: We had simple cookies with church coffee this morning. I was reminded of the words of Woody Paige, analyst on ESPN: "Raisin cookies that are made to look like chocolate chip cookies are the reason I have trust issues."
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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