Daily Lesson for June 2, 2020

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Proverbs chapter 8 verses 1 and 2:

Does not wisdom call,

    and does not understanding raise her voice?

2 On the heights, beside the way,

    at the crossroads she takes her stand;

Now is the moment for wisdom.  It is the moment for understanding.  It is the moment for discerning the times we are in.

And it is the moment for those who have understanding to raise their voices, and to make their stand.

What we witnessed last night before the boarded up doors of St. John's Church in Washington, DC was nothing less than abhorrent.  That peaceably assembled protesters would be gassed so that the President could take a vainglorious photo with a Bible in his hand was yet another sign of derangement.  And make no mistake, it was also a threat.  In recent weeks, the sitting US President has brazenly and unjustifiably accused a political enemy of murder, callously threatened "domination" in the streets, and now unlawfully tear-gassed American citizens. What is next?  Where will it end?  As conservative pundit George Will said Sunday, this president has "no rock bottom".

The wise must awaken to the existential threat of this moment.  We do not have a leader in the Oval Office; we have a misleader. And instead of tempering the fires burning in our cities' streets, he is fanning them.  People of conscience and goodwill from both sides of the aisle and of every shade under the sun -- and especially White conservatives and moderates -- need to rise up and say, "No more."  No more will we sit idly by while this President continues like Ahab to recklessly captain the ship. Responsible people must speak up and demand that the President change the way he is now governing, lest we shall surely break apart in the days that are to come.

On this past Sunday, I quoted an old 19th century hymn, written at another critical moment in our National life:

"Once to every man and nation

Comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of truth and falsehood . . . Twixt the darkness and the light"

This is the moment.  This is the crossroads.  One way is light. The other is darkness. One way is life.  The other is destruction.  Which shall we choose?

May those who are wise stand up and say.