A piece of the past revisited yesterday, just after I posted about how grace is the thing i need and lacked to get through DC. Could not believe how the same things that happened to me in DC have now followed me to NC. The situation: being screwed over by insurance companies because we forgot to check some box, we didn't even know needed to be checked, and so overpaid, and they won't give our money back. We paid them money for no reason, and they won't give it back. Robbery! In my mind, the insurance guy we talked to, deliberately withheld info we needed to overpay because that's what insurance companies do- they make you pay and pay and pay. so still incredibly mad at the entire situation and how the soulless, mindless, rigid policies, designed to make as much money as possible, are allowed to operate despite common sense, despite justice being on the little man's side. Feel frustrated and taken advantage of to no end. My life goal is not to line the pockets of execs of big companies, but to help the oppressed, the forgotten, the marginalized, the uninsured. And when I do line their pockets so they can buy their third home or new luxury car or what have you, I get extremely extremely mad. The system is unjust. There are huge inequities in America. There is excess, greed, corruption, stealing, and it is wrong wrong wrong.
These are the times when I agree with the Psalmist and Jesus that man is really awful (despite recently saying I want a balanced perspective), there is no good in him. Especially when you get into the mud of humanity and see how man is ruined. As a teacher and from a child development point, there is so much we can do to nurture people to be intelligent and wise and to have integrity and character. But, too often, it is not done and then it is too late. The bad habits are built, the brain has stopped developing, the opportunity is lost.And you have dysfunctional, hurtful people who continue cycles of destruction. Aggravating!!!
That is probably why we have to die to ourselves and take up the burden of the cross; otherwise, we would not stop the cycles and let corruption take its course. In other words, dying to ourselves, following Jesus, taking his burden upon ourselves, we stop the cycles of destruction and figure out how to get on a cycle of redemption and life. When we die to ourselves and strive for the righteousness of Jesus (even though he freely gives it), I think we impede the corrosive nature of sin, so that we have a chance to do right things. That is why Jesus went to hell, so we could come back from it as well. That is the power of the Gospel, in my opinion: that Jesus went to hell, goes to all the still hellish places on earth and redeems them. Oh, how I hate the truly ugly things of this world. They were not supposed to be here, but came as a result of sin entering the world. And they are despicable.
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