DO UNTO OTHERS/Part One

"You is kind, you is smart, and you is important".


Aibileen's story began with those encouraging words that she spoke into a child's heart.  Hers is a courageous story that began in Jackson, Mississippi...a place of little hope if you were born black.


In the early 90's I went with a friend on a road trip from Little Rock to surburban Jackson, Mississippi.  My friend had been invited to speak at a Christian Women's Club meeting.  The trip made such an impression on me that even my husband remembered the incident now twenty years later.


And as Mike and I drove home after seeing the movie The Help, he asked me again about the Jackson trip.  Back then I had been broadsided because my friend and I were overnight guests in a Christian home.  I was not expecting to see the maid treated as though she were invisible.  Some roots go deep and unexamined.


That's why we need Scripture.


Chuck Colson said in his commentary about The Help that the movie reminds us how easy it is to get blinded to personal and societal sin.  I agree.  The movie calls the audience to consider how our lives square with Scripture...

I watched Skeeter's mom cave to peer pressure while miserably wishing she hadn't.  She was living Romans 7.15: "for I do not understand my own actions.  I do not practice or accomplish what I wish, but I do the very thing that I loathe." It was sad to see that the women turned their children over to others to raise.  Then I wondered...if I had been financially able, would I have done the same thing?  I cringed when Hilly refused the maid's request for $75, saying "as a Christian, you will thank me one day".  Some pretty ungodly things get wrapped in Christ's name.  Hilly (in the pink flowered dress, played by Ron Howard's real daughter) just NAILED her role as the mean girl on a power trip.  I know I'm to love my enemies and pray for those who despitefully use me, but don't we ALL have an irregular person that we'd be tempted to send one of those chocolate pies?  Minny's humor was just the right lightheartedness that this serious movie needed.  And Missus Walters (Sissy Spacek) came in a close second.  What a hoot!


The movie told a story, but the intent was not to slam Jackson.  I came away from the movie inspired and challenged and I hope the people of Jackson did, too.  Jacksonians may have winced at their old ways, but I'm hoping they have reason to rejoice over progress.  While the story was told within racial perimeters, the problems were not restricted to race.  Deeper than Jackson's racism is the problem inside the human heart.  Cecilia Foote (below on left) could preach that sermon.

After leaving the movie, I began to ask myself if I have ever been someone who caved to fit in?  Yes.  Skeeter stood up for righteousness and then her world imploded.  Could I have had Skeeter's convictions at her age?  I totally doubt it.  Have I prayed for my enemies?  Only sometimes.  This "looking into the heart" is a messy undertaking and good movies help because we are visual learners.

Ever felt invisible?  Helpless?  Terrified?  Furious?  Mistreated by enemies?


We've all felt those emotions and that's why we identified with the movie.  Jesus felt those wounds, too...and more.  He understood Aibileen and Minny's deep degradation because He was despised and rejected by men.  His counsel?  "Do to others as you would have them do to you."  Why is such a simple command so hard to accomplish?  Heart issues are killers. 


Some of the hearts on display in this movie had trusted Christ and some trusted their own perception of "right".  One day all will bow before the Judge and He will accurately assess the intent of each heart.


And Aibileen's sweet words to the little girl about being kind, smart and important?  Aibileen spoke life!  The words were healing and affirming and redeeming...just like what the Lord would have said. 


Still, those three words come with a caveat.  The only way to be consistently kind is to have the Spirit of God empowering your life.  And smart?  Just thank God for whatever grey matter He has assigned to you.  Then ask Him to show you how to turn that information to wisdom (seeing life as He sees it).  Little children are our best examples of limited understanding speaking pure wisdom.


Then how can we know if we're important?  The One who made the world and all that is in it volunteered His life to buy our ticket home.  He wants to be with us forever and THAT'S the purest elevation of esteem.  With that assurance, no matter what the world dishes up, the love of the Father and the hope of His coming kingdom...will pull us through.  Just ask Aibileen and Minny.  They would tell you the ground is level at the foot of the cross.

  

QUITE A GRAB

Our President lives in a world called government.  His paternalistic answer to every question is authoritarian government.

But is our America defined as government?  Or are we defined as we the people?  Whatever happened to free enterprise and our rugged individualism?

America's most pressing issue is our economy.  What solution does his government offer for this problem?  Stimulus spending.  


Here's a little chart from the Heritage Foundation (based on Labor Department statistics) that reveals employment numbers after the recession.  The chart answers the question..."so who got stimulated?"

Well, if you didn't feel effects of the stimulus, that explains why.  We the people did not benefit; the government did.

And here's another question.  What caused our economy to go south?

Google "Obama blames".  Pages of stories will come up...headlines naming those the President holds responsible as he gives a finger wag.  Dubya bears the mother lode of all the scapegoats, followed closely now by the Tea Party.  The Tea Party?  Yes, for real.  Those "extremists" who begged for cuts and a balanced budget...now have earned the label "terrorist" from their "civil" opposition.  Who would think to mention that there were more Dems who voted against the debt legislation than Republicans?  Reason has fled.


Here's something else for the INCREDIBLE file.  Know how many new regulations this administration put in place just in July ALONE?  They proposed 229 new rules and finalized another 379.  That regulatory excess will cost the economy $9.5 billion and hamstring business.  Whose side are these guys on?

You would think the President would be trying new ideas to HELP the economy.  Is spending the only trick in his bag?  In his address Monday, the President suggested putting construction workers back to work.  And who will pay them, Mr. President?  The government?  With what?   

The cry of "yes, we can" has faded into the reality of "no, we cannot".  There is no way to pay for folks from cradle to grave.  The news from  London this week should make us TREMBLE.  Think those rioters are thugs, reacting to a police killing?  It may have started there, but the riots have morphed.  Listen to their comments.                     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhgzF1DFcF8                                                    Some Brits have been taught to expect government subsistence and to hate the rich...and they are furious that their programs are being cut.  These programs are unsustainable in Great Britain and across Europe.  Sound familiar?  That is our future if we continue down the nannystate path.

Will we have to lose our freedoms to realize how large government impedes them?  Maybe we will wake up when small business is regulated completely OUT of business...or when government leads the charge on fellow Americans...or when the consent of the governed is ignored...or when government robs individuals of initiative...or when government robs the next generation...or when government's true intention is cloaked in faux righteousness.

Yes.  Those things have already happened.  And today with a straight face, the President repeated his call for more stimulus.

Our system of government is being stolen before our eyes...and that's quite a grab.  The American experience, a unique and God-given opportunity, is being squandered.  And now Planned Parenthood dances in the street for joy because government has instructed insurance to pay for women's reproductive rights.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw2REPmbtj4  This video adds a note @the end to say Health and Human Services should be thanked for this wonderful thing they've brought about.


Woe is us!  God designed the authority of government to protect us, not to bring us harm.  He designed our work for our good, but some of us take without giving.  He offers true liberty and we insist on cheap rights.  Lord, we ask forgiveness for going our own way...for making life about "us"/not you...and for assuming you are so impotent that you can't even see us running to do wrong.  


Abba, your followers rest when we remember nothing will grab us out of your mighty hand.  We praise you for that surety.