Sometimes I think most of my worldview has come from reading the Travis McGee novels of John D. MacDonald - and let me say that if you're only going to get your worldview from one fictional author, you could do a lot worse than the chronicles of Travis McGee.
Recently (a relative term) I decided I needed to read straight through the Psalms. It occurred to me that over the course of my life I thought I had probably read everyone of the 150 Psalms, but I couldn't be sure. So I decided to read one a day. Sure enough, about 190 days later (hey, sometimes I forgot or was on the road or was buried in re-reading MacDonald), I put down the Psalms. I could honestly say now I had read them all.
Understood them all? Applied them all to my life?
No. But I do believe all those words will not go void.
Toward the end, I came across quite a few that I wanted The Heir to remember, in light of his facing the challenge of being a Knob under the merciless thumb of the cadres and upperclassmen who are intent upon molding him into a man of character in their own inimitable way.
Psalm 140: "Rescue me, Or Lord, from evil men; protect me from men of violence."
Psalm 141: "Let the wicked fall into their own nets, while I pass by in safety."
Psalm 119: "It was good for me to be afflicted, so that I might learn your decrees."
Psalm 116: "The Lord protects the simple hearted."
And so on. There are a lot of Psalms of protection.
Then I went on to read Proverbs and found chapter 13 "He who scorns instruction will pay for it, but he who respects a command is rewarded."
I figured as long as I was in the wisdom books - and had no more Travis McGee novels lying around - I would go on to Isaiah
I came across Isaiah 40: "even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength ..."
But anyway, this morning I came across Isaiah 59:4 "No one calls for justice; no one pleads his case with integrity. They rely on empty arguments and speak lies; ..."
The first thing that came to mind was "lawyers!'' Doesn't this sound like the legal profession today? In our courts, justice is over-run by rules (reminding me of Isaiah 28:10 "For it is: do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule, a little here, a little there.")
Of all the "tions'' that plague our country - inflation, immigration, lack of education, over-taxation, unionization - the one that seems to me to have really done the most damage is "litigation."
Because of courts that no longer actually care about justice, people can sue because their coffee was served too hot; or because they didn't see a step, tripped and fell; or they ate something that no person in their right mind would eat and then sue because there was no warning label telling them "not to be taken internally."
Comedian James Gregory used to do this entire bit about rules. Things like the sign on the hotel swimming pool that says "No animals allowed in the pool,'' which Gregory says meant that some nut, some where, said, "Hey, you know what we ought to do? Let's put the pony in the pool!"
My favorite is the warning label on certain hemorrhoid medicine that says, "Not to be taken internally," which means some nut, some where, thought to himself, "this stuff has done such a great job on my backside, I wonder what it tastes like on a cracker?"
You want to have some fun? Go read warning labels, and then imagine all the stupid things people must have done to cause that label to be printed and applied. Chances are, it was because of some lawyer who found a court that didn't believe in common sense.
There is no end to these ridiculous examples, of course. The other day, I was reading about John Edwards, the United States Senator and one-time vice-presidential candidate, who made a boat-load of money as a lawyer. One of his best-known cases (and I recognize this is an over-simplification, but essentially correct) was suing doctors on the premise that obstetricians caused cerebral palsy in babies by not performing cesarean sections soon enough. Apparently Edwards had jurors believing that waiting too long to deliver a baby caused some kind of stress that caused cerebral palsy.
Now doctors do cesarean sections as four times the rate as was done in 1970, with no reduction of babies born with cerebral palsy. Numerous studies have been done since to show that "in most cases, cerebral palsy is caused by fetal brain injury long before labor begins." (NY Times, Jan 31, 2004).
Shouldn't those doctors and their insurance companies be able to sue lawyers to recover the money they had to pay out? Shouldn't all of us who have had to pay higher medical expenses because of the cost of malpractice insurance be able to get a refund from attorneys like John Edwards?
Well, no. That's not how the system works.
It's not about justice. It's about "empty arguments and ... lies."
But then, it's not just lawyers (as much as I might wish it was).
A few years ago I was reading an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (because I read it regularly for stuff like this) when some high-brow professor from a northeastern brainiac school said something profound. I wish I had the exact quote and documentation, but I don't have time to look it up so I'll paraphrase.
Essentially, this Ph.D. admitted, teachers had spent several decades teaching "critical thinking skills" to generations of American students and he was afraid all they'd really done was teach students to be 'critical' - but not to think.
You see it all around us. We take pieces of sentences or phrases out of context and try to hang people on those very words. This is one area Chris Mathews and Glenn Beck apparently agree on, because I've heard both do it over and over.
As current presidential candidate Herman Cain (himself criticized for something he said that any sane person would realize was a joke) said recently, "America needs to learn how to take a joke."
Oh, we're good at being critical.
We're just not very good at thinking.
And so we've forgotten how to defend ourselves or others with integrity, seeking justice. We reward those with the prettiest words, no matter how empty or irrelevant they are.
My youngest son is a master of this. He can take an argument and turn it six ways, inside and out, hanging on to pieces of sentences or the most abstract concepts.
And, I must admit, he probably learned it from me.
Because like Adam, given the chance I'll tell even God "It wasn't me; it was the woman - the woman you gave me! So really, if you think about it God, it's your fault!''
Let me say right here that is not a reflection upon the Trophy Wife, no matter how quick I am to blame her for the most abstract and ridiculous things simply because I am trying to get out of taking responsibility for my own actions.
"No one calls for justice;
no one pleads his case with integrity.
They rely on empty arguments and speak lies ..."
I read somewhere that "for lack of guidance a nation falls.''
Oh yeah, it was a wisdom book.
Proverbs 11:14.
Well said! Thanks!
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