Rocky Road with Thorns - Wednesday, 12/08/2010

The good people The great people here along with those across the way and those around the corner and those several miles down the road and around the corner and those across the street, ad infinitum, decided they would create a structure to better do for themselves and others what each of them could not do well independently.

There were some obvious things assigned to the structure such as securing the land from foreign military threats and law enforcement assistance when and where needed by local bodies such as specific criminal activity involving more than a single locality. Additional responsibilities were added regarding commerce such as:

• the regulation of product weights and contents so that wood chips were not finely ground and used to inflate the contents of a loaf of bread or a sack of flour or cornmeal or other cooking ingredients

• the regulation of paint used in baby cribs, on children’s toys, and in new residences to guaranty the absence of asbestos and other harmful agents

• the monitoring of workplace and business practices to ensure the safety of workers and fair business practices throughout the localities

• enforcement of laws governing the minimum ages for drinking, driving, obtaining firearms and obtaining work permits for certain establishments

• regulation of working conditions to ensure that children were not forced into labor and that workers were provided proper safety gear to protect them from inhalation of toxins, minimize the loss of fingers or larger appendages in machinery, and protect their heads from falling debris and equipment or work tools on the work site

These and many other additional responsibilities were added gradually and only when the bodies were firmly convinced of a need they could not meet independently.

As the structure grew and did well, praise was heaped upon it -- the bodies had done well in establishing the structure and in a sense were praising their own good deeds. But as time passed and responsibilities added to the structure that was praised multiplied, the bodies began to develop differing understandings of their needs; and even within individual bodies differences sprang up concerning needs and desires and how the structure that was praised could best be used on behalf of the interests of the different factions of individual bodies as well as different bodies.

And the bodies began to lobby the structure that was praised and representatives to the structure that was praised, and eventually representatives to the representatives. And as some of these representatives had become crafty, they began to lobby the bodies on behalf of the representatives to the structure that was praised. And the bodies ceased working together to find common solutions to identified needs, and the needs were often nothing more than desires fed by the hubris of crafty representatives.

And so to ensure that the structure that was praised was not dragged into what became petty squabbles within and among the bodies, the representatives to the representatives to the structure that was praised did battle amongst themselves on behalf of the causes or desires considered needs or interests of parties whose members were perhaps at one time numbered among the bodies. And the causes of the parties began to consume the bodies, so much so that the bodies became better known as churches and ripe ground for recruiting support for the parties. And the churches took upon themselves names of great meaning to feed the illusion that they were still of His Body.

And the parties empowered the structure that was praised to resolve all conflict with the power of it’s might that its usefulness be preserved and Godly wisdom be foreign to it.

And through representatives to the representatives the parties rallied the churches in support of the wars that raged and the leader of the structure that was praised. And the banner of the structure that was praised flew high within the churches where allegiance was declared by all.

And the war criminal retired a hero and the structure that was praised began to groan with the whole of creation for relief from the failures of the churches that were once filled with members of His Body. And with the exception of here where understanding dimmed by opinion, the whole world all saw that the structure that was praised was not worthy.

But the churches did not recognize their distraction and continued down the Rocky Road with Thorns which was not good ice cream.

And yet, . . . there is help.