“‘WEEP FOR THE NATION”

By Jim Jordal

 “There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she has brought forth; neither is there any who takes her by the hand among all the sons who she has brought up”    Isa. 51:18 WEB

As I write this the TV is blaring about the latest outbreak of terrorism, with 59 people (at last count) killed and over 500 injured. The people shot were closely packed at a Las Vegas concert as the single gunman using fully automatic military weapons sprayed them with death from his perch high above the crowd. He didn’t even need to aim, but just shoot and kill as many as possible. He almost literally couldn’t miss!

It’s really no surprise as these things keep happening. President Trump responded with sympathy and condolences to families, but what can he do as events that boggle the mind keep us in a continual political and social minefield. Some want to limit the purchase of so-called military-grade weapons, but they are opposed by the gun lobby and the cries of 2^nd Amendment rights advocates to bear arms. Others say more guns in public hands would lessen the problem because criminals would be more reluctant to attempt massacres against a fully-armed public. Others want to take action against gun manufacturers themselves, even though many legislators are beholden to gun manufacturers for large campaign contributions. So what to do?

What the nation lacks was bemoaned centuries ago by the prophet Isaiah as he sadly proclaimed the awful fact that when faced with serious trouble (captivity under Assyrian domination) his nation had “none to guide her” or to “take her by the hand among all the sons she has brought up.” What a tragedy, with thousands of vital young people, trained servants of God, and trusted military and political leaders, the desperate nation could find no leadership and nobody to figuratively take her by the hand of love and guidance.

And so we are today in America. What minimal leadership we do have seems more interested in warding off symptoms rather than fighting against causes. Because of the strangling grasp of the world system of corporate dominance over all forms of life, we find it virtually impossible to hold off the symptoms of this domination. The symptoms we view every day: abject poverty, endemic violence, struggling families, drug and alcohol addiction, mental illness, and the widespread, threatening feeling of what French sociologist Emile Durkheim termed “anomie,” or a general feeling of purposelessness.

Where is our leadership when we most need it? Probably spending most office time in contacting financial donors, or scooting around the earth on fact-finding missions, or perhaps just refusing to run for another term in the hopeless battle for victory and the right to make even a small difference.

Somewhere along the line we as supposedly educated, intelligent people need to learn the difference between symptoms and causes. The symptoms we suffer with every day: the causes we can’t usually even identify because they are so well hidden by what I might call the practitioners of national destruction.

Yes, it’s time to weep for the nation as we slide into a world bleeding from as many social, political, and economic causes as you can count. But the biggest overriding cause is the age-old problem that humans, including leaders of every sort, think they are freed from the necessity of following the voice of God rather than the squeaking of men.

Earlier in the 51^st chapter, Isaiah promises full deliverance for the people “in whose heart is my law” from the fear of what men can do to them: “ Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; don't you fear the reproach of men, neither be you dismayed at their insults. For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool; but my righteousness shall be forever, and my salvation to all generations.”

There’s the answer to the angst of America: Allow God’s law into your hearts, along with his already present grace. Then weeping for the land will a benefit and will result in needed changes in the causes of our trouble.