Drugs. Education. Gender. Race and equity. Family issues. Immigration. Abortion. Is anything resolved, even reconciled, in this, our hyper- political world? For sure, the only certain thing among any of these is 'change' - but change to what and why?
Along the Chesapeake we get lots of reports, reports about the overall ecological health of the waterway, about amounts and quality of seafood, about recreation opportunities the Bay affords. Bay Bridge traffic is a perennial topic. Less talked about matters, like the fussiness of some Bay area real estate transfer procedures and the land ownership disputes that result, or the little talked about but amazing Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel (down near the Bay's southern tip), or the growth of the HBCU, UMES, only come up now and then.
Like America generally, the ferocity of debate on the Bay mirrors national issues. All the cacophony is usually spawned far from the shores of Ann Arundel, or Somerset, or Kent, or even the ultra-sophisticated Talbot counties. The Bay area, through it all, still leans to the right, politically and culturally.
Thank the Lord, people along the Bay aren't ashamed to display their right- leaning sensibilities, assured that many of their attitudes are anchored in the Lord's words.
Bay area residents wink at the left, right, back and forth, of the public discourse that acts like windshield whippers, too often squeezing out room for real progress.
This brings me back to the necklace of issues hanging around Marylanders' necks.
Down around the Bay, the Bible has always found practical day-to-day expression, manifested in the way the people in these parts have chosen to live. It's not that people around the Bay are any smarter than their more landlocked neighbors (though they seem better at realizing more from relatively less). It is that they've clung more closely to the unchanging practical value of 'The Word'. This has provided a 'heavenly-begotten' premium.
Starting with proof of the Lord's salvation (from the darkest deepest hole), the worse drug addled sinner need but turn to Christ, and be saved. Instead, too many have gotten caught in a wishy-washy illogic of, 'it's a disease' that leads to ever more drugs, consumed under the leftists' banners of personal freedom, misleading calls for manufactured equity, and a need for relief from an increasingly challenging society.
On abortion (no matter how it's framed - the killing of babies), the appealing talking point is, 'it's between a woman and her doctor'. Such arrogant thinking completely negates HIM, the one source of all life. Certainly, (in any Earthly sense) it is her body; but this completely secular view dismisses the role of everything Christian faith teaches. Sure it's her body, but it's HIS first. This is not rocket science. (Frankly the abortion mess could be cured with just a little more personal responsibility, leaving her, him, and the unborn all intact.)
Language, meaning, and the word tools that give them life are tricky things. Carried to extremes, up can be made down, excrement can be sweetened to perfume, homosexual is morphed into 'gay'.
Not too long ago the American Psychiatric Society filed most persistent gender confusion issues under, 'Mental Disorder'. Political correctness no longer permits any such descriptive or actual honesty. I'll chance to suggest this, you show me a God-less person, one without knowledge or love of the certainty of the Bible's teachings, I'll show you a life of almost constant confusion - enough confusion to drive anybody crazy.
There've had homosexuals, lesbians, other sexual deviations throughout human history. Some cultural elites (most notably late BC early AD Romans) played the 'gender game'; mostly because they often had more idle time then common sense or moral grounding. Roman elitist at least feign to observe some modicum of discretion. This was no concession to decency, as much as an effort to conceal their complete debauchery, from the prying eyes of 'those poor unsophisticated masses'. Today, shockingly, not even for-show claims of propriety are offered. Social Media size eyes-on reaction is the goal of today's outrageous displays - most aren't even clever.
"How much more prurient can I be"? How much lust can a society endure in the name of, 'who you love'?
People on the Bay more generally just want to live, prosper, and let live. Their Bible tells them, 'judgement belongs to the Lord'. They only hope their tolerance will not be mistaken merely for good-ole-boy ignorance. Their faith assures them it isn't.
'Race', while mostly subdued, lingers as a topic - the Bay, after all, is still part of America. The solution would be to accept each man as God's child, each person worthy of God's loves. To quote Chief Justice Roberts, 'the way to end discrimination is to stop discriminating'. Alas, the Lord is still working on us. On the Bay, I think it's the levelling effects of Judeo-Christian living that still holds enough sway to move human-to-human relations in the right direction.
Some men are given ten things, some twenty. If I hear again the plight of one man (or group) is all the fault of another, I'll scream"! GOD did not make HIS people to grovel. HE did not give one man dominion over another. HE did not make one man a king, another man a slave. Only men do that to other men.
The Bay is a treasure trove of material wealth. The Chesapeake's bounty, while not always one-to-one, effort-for-effort, is, nonetheless, world famous for making lots of people (people of many races) very prosperous. To suggest anything to the contrary is to call the LORD a lie. The Bay has never been a lie.
Thoughtful Americans share a lot - especially along the Bay. Thoughtful, they are Bible lovers. Bible lovers, they are thoughtful.
Come down to the Chesapeake Bay. Don't forget, bring your Bible.
Get back to us here at Bible By The Bay. We want to hear from you. Tell us what you think.
It's Bible By The Bay.
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