Keeping Your Wits About You

Samuel Clemons, aka Mark Twain, has been cancelled by the woke folks. I doubt Mr. Clemons cares since he’s dead, but I’m thinking our culture is going to suffer with his absence.

Twain was one of the more astute observers of American life, culture, and society. Utilizing his wonderful sense of humor, he broached taboo subjects and brought them into the light for our examination.

For instance, Mr. Twain said, “Suppose you are an idiot, and suppose you are a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.” And, “We have the best government that money can buy.”

He also observed that, “Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.”

Looking into the light can be unpleasant, so he’s cancelled now and society is robbed of his contribution. Denial is a dangerous business. It most certainly destines us to learn from the school of hard knocks.

Mr. Twain got cancelled by the woke because they deemed him a racist. The more woke the woke get, the more I’m convinced that they have no notion of what racism is.

While the woke exercise their sanctimonious intolerance, they fail to notice that one of Twain’s dearest friends was John T. Lewis, a black man, and that his writings portrayed life as it was when he was writing. If we get so woke that we cancel our history we are destined to repeat our history.

Twain also observed that “truth is stranger than fiction.”

It’s tragic to the point of being absurd, but each new day the news feeds contain a story that is more ludicrous than yesterday’s lead articles.

While denigrating racism, the woke are segregating us by race! What are they thinking?

When I was in elementary school, an ambitious program began to integrate the schools. Black kids were bused to all-white schools, and vice versa; school districts were redrawn.

The woke have forgotten the image of Ruby Nell Bridges going to school in 1960 escorted by four marshals. For the last sixty years America has endeavored to integrate.

Twice now, the woke have cancelled translators of Amanda Gorman’s poem that she read during the Presidential Inauguration. In each instance, the translators were imminently qualified… but were cancelled because neither is black.

How odd is it that these woke folk fancy themselves Progressive when much of what they initiate is regressive.

I shake my head, bumfuzzled in consternation at what’s transpiring. 

I could go: There’s the crisis at the border, diktats from a President that pledged unity; then there are inequities, and inanities, and on and on.

Our lives are suffering an unpredictable tumult that is severe enough to turn us topsy-turvy. The incidents of violent crime are up, suicide is up, murder is up, abuse of all types is up, distrust is rampant, and we still can’t figure out many masks to wear when, and who uses what bathroom.

So, what posture do we adopt when the world goes bonkers?

When black is not black enough, everyone who’s white is guilty, wrong is declared right, and law is applied whimsically, how do you keep your wits about you?

You need to be certain of two things.

First, you need a fixed point from which to navigate.

For those of us who are allied with Jesus Christ, the book of Hebrews says that He [Jesus Christ] never changes, alters, or evolves. He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever. James says of God that He never varies, never shifts, and is so pure that He has no shadow. It’s noteworthy that Hebrews also declares that Believers’ souls are anchored in Jesus Christ.

It’s disconcerting to watch and live with upheaval. Perhaps it will calm down. Perhaps not. The better part of wisdom is that you need to look at a fixed object instead of the waves and wind. In fact, Scripture says we are to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

I encourage you: Fix your eyes on Jesus. He will not move, adjust, flinch, blink, or even sigh. He is the same all the time and there are no worldly factors big enough to cause Him worry.

In John’s Revelation, he says that he saw a throne and that God was sitting on it. Notice, there is nothing transpiring in the universe grave enough, alarming enough, or concerning enough to cause God to stand up. No, He is seated and will remain so until judgment comes and He makes all things right.

Second, you need to know that you are okay.

Even though society buffets you, government does dumb stuff, your business founders, you are sick, your kid makes a bad choice, ad infinitum—you have everything necessary to enable you to withstand whatever comes your way.

Remember John 14:20? “In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” Nothing enters your life but that it first passes through God and through Jesus to get to you—and when it encounters you, it finds you filled with Jesus.

You are okay.