Genesis 27

I promise, this is my last thought about this week's scandal of stupidity.  I know I write this only for myself, but years from now if I look at this and wonder why I spent three striaght days on this I will wonder if I had a brain aneurysm or something...

Got to thinking about Genesis 27 this morning.  It's a long chapter and I won't tell the whole story here but you have a Bible so go and read it.  Rebekah, who loved Jacob more than Esau, ensured that Jacob got the family blessing ahead of Esau, though he didn't deserve it.  It was the 17th century BC's version of giving Jacob the answers on the SAT while locking Esau out of the room.  Jacob was blessed, Esau was outraged and threatened to kill his brother (but not his mother, suprisingly, whose idea it was, though I wonder if he ever knew that), and it's years until the brothers ever see each other again.  Rebekah did all these things knowing that she might never see her favorite son again...did she know that she might go to jail or incur Isaac or Esau's wrath? 

The older my children get the more that I see that as parents we are often irrational when it comes to our children.  On our own we nitpick at them and we hassle them on things that are unimportant and at our worst we drive them away from us even as we think that we are doing is being done in love.  But should somebody stand in the way of them and their bright future?  We will destroy these interlopers.  In something as insignificant as a middle school basketball game we will harbor hateful thoughts towards the other team, the officials, and even their own teammates and coaches if something unfair happens to our child.  We want what is best for others, and so often it blinds us towards anything else. 

And since we are fallible, messed up human beings, we often don't even know what is righteous anymore, so obsessed are we to make things 'right' for our children.  Sometimes, like Rebekah, we even blow up our entire family to ensure that one child is favored.  I'm sure that as some pious mother is doing her Bible reading this morning she is outraged at Rebekah's behavior, even as she is plotting the easiest path for her youngest child to enter into Harvard. 

Outrage was invented by the political left and has been perfected by the political right.  I sometimes succumb to it, but I have made the choice to no longer be controlled by it.  I have too much other stuff going on in real life to have the time for it. 

Outrage du jour

The outrage over the college admissions scandal continues.  I wrote last night what I think, and I posted a few counterpoints on Facebook today with people who seem to be willing to cast that stone ("I've never thought about doing something like that!"). But I'm at peace with being annoyed but not really bothered.  I know we don't live in a meritoracy, and I know that people will be ticked off. 

So today I want to give some outrage starter sentences.  Nobody will read this blog because I keep it mostly hidden, but should one of you stumble across this you are free to find some new outrage hidden in this.  Good luck. 

-The moon doesn't shine, it only reflects the light of the sun.  How dare the moon trick us like that, pretending to shine on us when in fact it's stealing light intended for elsewhere.
-I have hundreds of books on the shelf of my office, some of which I have not opened in years.  How dare I have had these trees cut down so that my brain could have washed over these pages.  How dare I deny the education of others so that I can hold onto these books.  How dare I continue to put pressure on the screws that hold my wall shelves into place.  How dare I hold onto books that really weren't good to begin with, some of whom I disagree with, and a few even which ought to be thrown into the fire.
-My pickup truck is sitting in the parking lot outside of my office.  Why am I not being so generous to leave the keys in it so that somebody who might need it cannot borrow it without asking?  I am so, so stingy in that way. 
-Democrats and Republicans both support a system of taxation.  I didn't agree to it by casting my vote directly, and neither did you.  Why am I am having to pay taxes that I don't like?  It's communism, I tell you. 
-I was born in the United States, to good, Godly parents.  What right do I have to even live, so fortunate was I?  I oughta give up everything and go live under a bridge in some third world country...that would only be fair, right? 
-There is a road out in front of my house.  It's been there for almost 60 years.  I didn't agree to it being built, so why can't I go out and pickaxe the road and turn it back to what it once was?  To deny me that right is a pure outrage, a denial of my American freedom to do whatever I want. 

OK, it's stupid, I know.  Outrage du jour is not a fun game, but it is something that far too many people like to play.  Just leave me out of it. 

Manufactured Outrage

Working alone in a one-man office, I sometimes whether or not the world is imploding outside, and I'm just watching it through my pane-glad windows.  Yes, usually I meet and visit with people several times a day, but there are whole blocks of two or three hours in which I am alone with my thoughts, with prayer, with Scripture.  I surf around the internet when I take breaks or listen to some music, but I will go hours at a time having no contact with any other humans.

Recently Colin Kapernick, a not-very-good quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, decided to stage a protest, refusing to stand during the national anthem.  Why he did so may or may not be irrelevant...something about the injustice of our world, which seems ironic in that his protest comes from a man in the top .00001% of wage earners in our country for playing a game.

Naturally, of course, the internet has blown up.  Most of the people I have seen commenting on this are outraged...how can you not stand?  How unpatriotic!  How unAmerican!  Of course, I have wondered why we are so intent on playing this song before sporting events even as we do not do so before movies or other forms of live entertainment.  In truth I feel that playing it as often as we do cheapens its meaning...indeed, I often have been at games in which people stand up reluctantly, hardly paying attention to it, wondering how to hold their drink in one hand and put their hand over their heart with their other for a minute and fifteen seconds even as they keep an eye on four restless kids.  We do our patriotic salute and we move on.  We hear it so often that it loses its meaning.

Yet I never cease to be amazed at how easy it is to manufacture outrage over something like this.  The same people who get so worked up over how this world is becoming so politically correct ("Why are people so mad that I said ______?  They [usually a minority or liberal group] need to get over it!") are now acting as if Kapernick has spit on the flag and set it ablaze as he screams Muslim praises.

I could spout the usual liberal response, that freedom means that we listen to what somebody is saying even as we don't like it...but in the end I'm just so tired of it all.  Maybe I need to close my blinds a little bit more, stop surfing the internet on my breaks, and just shut out the world.  I can't handle any more outrage today, thank you.