Is government and society failing our kids?

Pondering the Second Book of Kings as it relates to today

I know this starts to read like a religious sermon but please stick with my thought process and tell me if I am wrong?

There is a mysterious story in 2 Kings that can help us to grow in courage as we face future uncertainty. Israel is at war with Aram. Elisha the man of God is using his prophetic powers to reveal to the Israelites the strategic plans of the Aramean army. At first the King of Aram thinks that one of his officers is playing the spy. But when he learns the truth, he dispatches troops to go and capture Elisha who is residing in Dothan.

The Aramean troops move in under cover of darkness and surround the city. In the morning Elisha's servant is the first to discover that they are trapped and he fears for his master's safety. He runs to Elisha and says, "Oh, my lord, what shall we do?" The prophet answers "Don't be afraid. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them."

But who would believe that when the surrounding mountainside is covered with advancing enemy troops? So Elisha prays, "O Lord, open his eyes so he may see." Then the Lord opens the servant's eyes, and he looks and sees the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha (2 Kings 6:8-23).

This vision was all that Elisha's disciple needed to reassure him. At the end of the story, not only was the prophet of God safe but the invading army was totally humiliated.  

The enemies of God are far more numerous than those who gave up their time this morning to worship Him at their local church. Sure, not everyone who did not attend Church this morning is an enemy of God. But they are not doing much to help His Cause.

I was prompted by Tweets from a few optimistic supporters to put up my hand and offer to take the vacant seat of Pope Benedict. I smile at their naivety. Some think that we can circumnavigate the conclave process and force the sort of Pope that the world genuinely needs and wrestle the Church away from the aging and inept Cardinals. Although it did happen in past generations and the time is perfect for it to happen this year, it’s not going to happen!

The reason is, most Catholics don’t care. The Catholic Church is populated with apathy. I see it every week. People strolling into Mass behind the priest and right up to the Gospel time you still see the tardy mostly Filipinos looking for a seat or standing outside the doors. Throughout the service everyone is shifting uneasily in their seats, looking at their Iphones or just looking around. The priest is waxing on about something irrelevant and boredom looms over everyone like a cloud you can feel. And these are the ones who bothered to go to Church!

But do many of them feel motivated to enliven the experience themselves by their participation? Does anyone want to be moved by the Spirit of God that is in the place? I doubt it.

See, here I am on a Sunday morning, pondering the social and spiritual problems that impact on the world while the rest of the Church membership read their secular Sunday papers wondering how they will spend the day: whether to do that nagging household repair, ponder decisions that relate to their out-of-control mortgage, prepare themselves to face a difficult working week or hesitate to correct that erring child who just go home as the sun rose.

The problems of life impede us from reflecting on the real issues that prevail upon our rapidly destabilizing society. We don’t want to think about the future more than the day or week ahead.

In the reading from 2 Kings, God causes Elisha to turn his eyes not to the magnitude of the advancing enemy but to the grace and power of God whom he had at his disposal.

Maybe that is what I need to do more of. Trust in God, like I keep telling Josefina who sees our rising debt and failing fortunes.

Josefina often criticizes me for being too focused on the Church’s ills and not investing more of my time and energy into making a future for us.

“If we don’t fix the errors in the Church and in society Josefina, what is the point of even bothering to give birth to children who will live in the future?” I counter.

I see so many approaching catastrophes that it sometimes causes me to lose optimism about the future. Maybe you see them too?

The rising debt which our country is being plunged deeper into by a Government desperate to cling to power. The tide of illegal asylum seekers who are of largely unknown origins are like a cancer we invite into our body. We do not know how much damage they pose to our national security and they continue to be placed in populated areas and have been given free access to the internet and radical Islamic websites.

The enormous increase in availability of illegal drugs and the attractiveness that they seem to offer our youth. The massive problem of mental illness and those whose family are suffering with nowhere to turn for support, whom we turn our backs on. The sheer volume of weapons on the streets and in the hands of dangerous people that the police seem incapable of stemming. Outlawed motorcycle gangs who flaunt the law and the criminals that our courts keep returning to the streets. Growing ghettos of ethnic people displaying foreign language signs turning Australian towns and cities into cultural exclusion zones.  

The number of legal and illegal sex shops springing up in every town bringing with them all of the above!

Not many people seem concerned about these elements of our society that no longer resemble the country I grew up in.

We joke about the fact that we used to leave our houses unlocked at night and the windows of our car wound down when we parked on streets in our home town but I think it’s a crying shame that we can no longer do that.

Why can’t we have those times again? Why can’t we have neighbourhoods where people talk to each other and know each other’s names?
It’s not too much to expect that people have the confidence to allow their kids to walk the streets and play with the neighbour’s kids.

I feel we fail as a culture if we allow the erosion of all that we hold dear. Family, job security, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and willingness to trust the very people whom society suggests we ought to: politicians, police and priests!