"Duality..........................."

July 4th this year was simply one more day on the calendar, Beth and I staying with a widowed sister-in-law, wife of the older brother who passed away in early March. She is nearly blind in one eyes, now facing surgery on the other with no guarantee of her gaining back any vision there. The situation requires constant assistance. Her house sits in a hillside community, one of several stretched alongside a small winding road such as we know here in Kentucky. It's morning and I'm seated outside at a table in the backyard listening to the birds fill the air with music. The sun in not yet so high as to produce the thermal blanket we've known here recently. A slight breeze is dancing in the trees nearby, much like an invisible sprite playing hide-and-seek with me. Regardless of not having heard one explosion whatsoever at any time yesterday, nor seeing any multi-colored fireworks lighting up the sky last night, my thoughts at the moment are nonetheless turned to something that an old Navy friend, a pastor down in Alabama these days, said to me after reading my last post. "For me, " he opined, "God and country just go together!" I would agree that this nation is only as strong as the spiritual commitment it holds with the Creator, but I have also long viewed government and church as "two peas in a pod". What can be said on the former can as well, in many ways, be said of the latter when it comes to "politics". What we within the faith must learn, however, is that getting rid of corruption is not a matter of merely demanding our ecclesiastical ethics be mandated and forced upon all. Better that we might first examine ourselves and learn to live what we believe in such a way that the Spirit is a reality manifested through us. The world does not respect the swinging of our personal sword as we, alone, possess truth; but it has no choice other than to recognize Christ, risen and live in His people.....