We Need To Change

 Transformation is horribly hard and desperately needed

The Life And Times Of Brian Waddington 

Transformation

Anyone who has access to a Free Press, the Internet, shortwave radio, international radio broadcasts, or cable news is aware of just how sick our world is. 

Long ago, exactly how long ago I don't know. I doubt that anybody does but it was a long long time ago. Someone somewhere came to the understanding for the first time that humans aren't very nice. This person thought about the inhumanity of humanity a great deal. Perhaps they went into the desert and for a long time lived on wild honey and locusts? Perhaps they just went and fasted for a long time in the desert? But eventually they came to the understanding that humans not only needed to change but they could change. 

The trouble came when they tried to convince others of their beliefs. Often they would be laughed at, ridiculed and cast out of their hometown. In more extreme cases they'd be killed. The reason for this I believe is that people enjoy their inhumanity, enjoy their dark side, enjoy the evil that is within all of us. Here's one small glaring example. 

A couple days ago milady and myself were discussing the latest mass murder in America and the latest police atrocity in America. 

The 4th of July rooftop shooter who killed seven people wounded more than 30 got off the rooftop into a car and tried to escape was part of the discussion. The police engaged in pursuit, got him to stop, got him out of the car into handcuffs and into jail all within a couple of hours. They did an excellent job of apprehending and making this person no threat to the rest of the world. They didn’t even mess up his hair. 

The latest police atrocity was in Akron Ohio. Or at least the latest one that made the news. 

Apparently about a dozen police officers chased a man in a car. They got him to stop the car. He attempted to escape on foot. The police began firing their weapons. When they stopped the person they were apprehending had been shot at least sixty (60) times. They pronounced him dead on the scene 

He had originally been pulled over, according to the police reports, for a traffic violation. Perhaps he was speeding. Perhaps he had a taillight out. They weren't specific. He attempted to flee. 

They chased and they shot this guy sixty times. As it turned out he had a weapon in the car. It was a sidearm with no bullets. 

The murder victim in Akron OH was black. The shooter on the rooftop was white.

As far as anybody can tell it was the color of the skin that decided who lived and who died.

M'Lady, who is no great fan of America put forward her opinion that you couldn't blame middle class America for these terrible atrocities. I disagreed. 

At this point in American history after decades of worsening mass shootings and murders. Worsening means greater frequency and greater number of people getting killed. They have still done nothing to get the weapons of mass destruction off the street. America wants its guns. Even left-wing podcasters have come to the conclusion that it's impossible to get the guns off the street. I don't know if it's possible or impossible to get the guns off the street. I do know that the gun culture is American culture. 

America wallows in this filth. They elect the officials that do nothing about the guns. They do nothing because if they do something they won't get elected again. Some blame it on the Rifle Lobby. Others blame it on outlaws. I blame it on middle class America. They are the ones who have the power to get people elected or not elected. But they don't want to use it. They love the weapons they love the destruction it's part of their culture. 

A long time ago, in the time of Henry Ford, America decided they would accept car accident deaths at a higher rate than horse and carriage deaths because the car answered middle class American greed. Now they have more than 50,000 deaths a year on their highways and they're just fine with that. 

America decided when airlines started carrying the masses that they were just fine with the reality that every now and again a plane with 400 or 500 people would crash and the passengers would all die. They're OK with that because their greed for cheap flights was more powerful than their compassion for the families of the dead passengers. American culture is sick. For the convenience of the many they're willing to have the few die. It is greed over need and my greed is better than your greed. That's a sick society. 

This takes us back to the start of this rant. Religion, true good religion is all about making us more humane. It's about transforming the Caterpillar. Through work, effort and dedication having that Caterpillar transform into a beautiful butterfly. America is stuck in the Caterpillar stage. Or as the ladies here would put it they are stuck in the worm stage. 

If your religious leader tells you that you're special, that you're a child of God, or that you're blessed while the other is cursed because you have the truth, change your church, your temple your synagogue or your mosque. Change quickly! 

There are many religious leaders alive today or who lived in the past that teach or taught transformation. For Christians John the Baptist and Jesus come to mind. For anyone of the Jewish faith all of the Old Testament prophets minor and major taught transformation. For followers of Islam Mohammad brought the message of transformation. I'm saying nothing new here though I may be saying something that has been forgotten. 

We all, and we includes me, we all need transformation. We do not need to make ourselves better. We need to transform. To use a phrase that I detest because it has been so misused, we need to be born again. We don't need to be born in the blood of Jesus or into a jihadist warrior that's going to go kill the infidels. We need to be transformed into what Jesus prayed for. 

Now I'm going to let you look this one up but it's not hard to find. Look up the ‘prayers of Jesus'. You will find that he prays to God his father that his followers will become one with God as he is one with the God. Jesus didn't want them to be better Jews. He wanted his followers to become children of God to transform into what they could be. We still need that transformation. 

 

Brian