November 11, 2005
Theories
I don’t know why people make such a bug fuss over our origins and how it was that we got here. God’s known all along, anyway, and probably nothing much is added to God’s resumé by all our stewing. Question is not about how it all happened, but what do we do about it now that it has, and we’ve got it on our hands.
There seem to be two theories. There’s the system our founders came up with in the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, The Constitution, and the snappy kinds of checks and balances with which to make it all work properly. For openers, we might even call that an Intelligent Design. I can’t imagine anybody would disagree that it was.
Then there’s the way we’re currently attending to it. Like cutting money for Head Start. Taking more poor children off health care. Compromising Medicare. Writing memos justifying torture. Cutting after-school nutrition and AIDS programs so multimillionaires can have bigger tax cuts.
And then there’s lying, let’s not forget lying. And the environment. Maybe some don’t believe in global warming, but anybody could agree that it’s not getting any colder what with all the glaciers melting and coastlines retreating. And let’s not forget the so-called Patriots Act, one old King George would have been proud of and probably couldn’t have thought of a better name for, himself.
When our founders wrote the Declaration of Independence, they seemed to have cared a lot about how the rest of the world felt about what we were doing. But now, their successors, with their attitude about the Geneva Convention, the Kyoto Treaty, the International Court, not to mention the United Nations, apparently couldn’t care less.
How about we call all this the Theory of Devolution. Intelligent Design or Devolution? Take your choice. Or maybe we already have.
[Visit Episcopal Relief and Development at http://www.er-d.org/ to make a donation to catastrophe relief or Episcopal Migration Ministries at emm@episcopalchurch.org to volunteer to assist displaced people with housing.]