Thoughts on Learning to Go Softly Through 2020

What can we learn from social media?

- We learn to face the fact that the basis of life is tragic.  When we begin to see the true relation of things  we will say, “I will go softly all my years.”

Have we found God yet?

- Many of us have been given the opportunity to find God in the belly of hell during this pandemic. We have come face to face with God through having had things stripped off and having to face the fact that the basis of life is tragedy. 

When will the Mount Vesuvius of political corruption erupt? 

- The DC political class has been building their reign of power over a volcano of lies, bribes, extortion, violence, and hate.  We are all waiting for the day when there will come terrific havoc. If anyone continues to ignore the safety valves of Biblical wisdom, they will have to pay the penalty. 

- Mount Vesuvius is one of the pumps that keeps the earth in proper order. The Creator has put His danger signals there, and yet people ignore them and plant their vineyards on its slopes.  Then when an eruption occurs we blame God and say how cruel He is to allow it.  

Here's how we can learn to get away from the politics of the election and the pandemic while we are in the politics and the pandemic: 

- One of the greatest defects in Christianity is that it is not shallow enough. It is religious enough, supernormally moral, but not able to eat, drink and be merry. 

- The art of shallow conversation is one that is rarely learned. It is a great gift as well as a real ministration to be able to say nothing cleverly. It is an insult to be everlastingly introducing subjects that make people think on the deepest lines (like I am trying to do now). It takes all the essence of Christianity to be shallow properly. 

Why do Hollywood entertainers and sports personalities lack the wisdom and discernment for political activism?

- The private history of a professional entertainer or athlete may be one of the saddest. The man who sets himself to entertain others has often an immensely sad life of his own behind. A man can kill his own wisdom by living apart; he can atrophy his real life by keeping up a certain role. 

- When you take up the entertainment role, you kill something that ought not to be killed, you atrophy the wisest part of your nature. It takes a tremendous amount of relationship to God for a man to be what he is.

-Adapted from Oswald Chambers' The Shade of His Hand