Eric Youngblood: As Easy As Giggin’ A Fat Frog On A Sap-Soaked Log

  • Monday, July 25, 2016

“I love Trump. How can you not love Trump?”
 
Those are the sentiments of the generously bearded duck-call manufacturer and reality tv star Willie Robertson. 

With Duck Dynastic confidence the American-flag-bandana-ed Mr. Robertson asserts a sentiment completely self-evident...to himself. His zeal, popularity and the occasion of the GOP National Convention conspired to slate him to speak last Monday night. 

Full disclosure: I didn’t watch his speech, or any of the speeches.

But I do see reactions and such afterwards. 

Is Willie Depressed?
But, as I started to ponder last week before the Convention, I wonder again tonight as the Democrats take their turn at the plate, what would have happened if Ol’ Willy or heck, even, on the other side, Mrs. Obama, were to say something along these lines:

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we stand at a critical juncture in our nation’s history. The future is summoning us to alteration. We have a mandate to “Make America Great Again!” (thunderous applause).  And if we want to do that, we first have to stop wagging our angry fingers at the Democrats, the liberals, the immigrants, and the gays! If we want greatness, we must stop suspecting everyone else is the problem, and show some self-suspicion.” (Crowd groans in bewilderment, each delegate murmuring to his neighbor, “What’s happening? Is Willie depressed?)

“I’ve been lookin’ long and hard at my life, and realizin’ that it’s as easy as giggin’ a fat frog on a sap-soaked log to jeer at Hillary Clinton. I mean, she truly is awful. But I’ve fallen, hook, line, and sinker to a rather bullying force in my own life. I’ve decided to fast for a time from critical verbal assassination of my enemies. You know, it’s just too easy. Too obvious. Too lucrative. Too much applause for doing it. 

But it becomes like a dang ol’ plastic tarp that covers my eyes from being able to see what’s wrong in me. Plus, I when I’m sitting in a duck blind early in the morning, I sometimes realize I don’t even know any one who disagrees with me. I am angry at what is largely an abstraction, not a person that I actually know.”

Would folks exhale in relief? Or lampoon him for going soft?

And I’m not delusional enough to presume that we’ll hear any such soul-searching during the Democratic Convention. I suspect, instead, flip-side clarity that was just espoused by the conservatives only this time by the liberals.... bewailing the evils of the old-white-man party, replete with accusations of racism, women-hating, and heartlessness toward outsiders.

What’s Wrong With the World?
Two of the most unpopular and least respected presidential candidates in history have no better imagined hope than jackhammering their opponents to such an extent that a whole slew of like-minded folks, whether on the left or the right, can sway with the rhythm of the staccato pummeling. 

No, I’ve not much hope we’ll hear any public discourse that takes the approach of GK Chesterton when he answered a London Times query to its readers,”What’s wrong with the world.” The verbose and witty Chesterton of course, gave a pre-internet, twitter-worthy response with the succinct, yet comprehensive, “I am.”

The Oxford don, CS Lewis, once suggested, in a thematic key that unlocks many mysteries, “the devil always sends error in pairs of polar opposites.”

Which is to say that error often presents in completely opposing ways, just as some medicines can restlessly hype up some and sedate the rest. A liberal and a conservative can easily spot the error of the other. And the penny-pinching miser and the squandering spendthrift can too. The great mystery, of course, is unearthing the lurking errors residing within each. 

His point is that the devil can keep you fixated on what’s wrong at the other end of the spectrum from you, while your own wrong is concealed from you. The miser and the spendthrift are both suffering from a greedy money-sickness, as Tim Keller notes. The miser is eaten up with the security it provides, and the spendthrift, with the options of luxury and privilege it furnishes. They couldn’t be more opposite. And neither could be more the same. Neither suspects their own ailment.

Those dynamics play out politically too of course. That’s why Christians want, or ought to want, to maintain there are only going to be approximate resonances and disjointed fits with political parties where just two parties are meant to cover the range of cures to the myriad ailments presumed to be under the purview of our government. 

A Gossip Can Spot a Gossip From a Mile Away...
And it ought to temper our harshness.

Two decades back, while jogging and bantering with a good buddy, I suggested, “You know, I think the things I find most bothersome in others are the same exact things I hate most about myself.”

He was affirming of the sentiment. “That’s the Eric Youngblood principle!” he exclaimed.

Since then, I have seen that same concept expressed in myriad ways, with my favorite being from Walt Wangerin who reminds, “The sins we see best in others, we learned first in ourselves. A gossip can spot a gossip from a mile away.”

I can’t help but imagine that public conversation, political discourse, familial dialogue, and all manner of endeavor would see substantial improvement if there were even a touch of awareness of this concept. 

Could my suspiciousness be creating the suspiciousness that I see around me?

Might my own severity with myself be driving my demanding severity with those around me who don’t come through when they should?

Is it possible that when I see so clearly how hateful someone else is being, it is, at least in part, because I am so expert in ugliness myself?

We Christians at least, ought to swiftly exercise some self-suspicion when the wickedness, foolishness, and boneheadedness of our “opponents”, whether real, or imagined, is most vivid. 

Swift Self-Suspicion
Should we take the notion of swift self-suspicion seriously, we may be just as swiftly reacquainted with the solid relief of meeting the heart-dissolving mercies of Christ in the face of our own wickedness, foolishness and boneheadedness. And before we know it, we might just remember that we are reconciliation-brokers, seeking to bring repair, not division, pity, not judgment, and the life of the Savior, not merely our political ideology to a world in need of judgment-erasing grace. 

You might even find yourself saying, like Willie said of the Donald, “I love Hillary Clinton! How could you not love Hillary Clinton? Not because you admire her policies or her character perhaps, but because she bears the image of our God. Just like Mr. Trump, Chachi, and Bernie Sanders. 

Our religion is distinguished by the fact that our Father does good to his enemies. He gives cookies-n-cream ice cream, Lonesome Dove, and loyal pet labradors to both God-lovers and God-ignorers. Atheists and Assemblies of God alike are welcome to the Grand Tetons to behold the stunning magnificence he has breathed into existence in Wyoming. 

And we’re summoned not to lambast our enemies, but to do them good. We take our cues from our Lord, who, instead of destroying those who were against him, permitted himself to be destroyed for them, so that any who will receive it, can become his friends. 

We live at the largesse of him who will accept and welcome a surrender from anyone who presently extends the middle finger of contempt, hiding, or ignoring to him. And he’ll receive them, we are assured, just as he has us, with radiant joy. 

Wonder if everyone realizes we believe that during political season? Or during any season?

-----

Eric Youngblood is the senior pastor at Rock Creek Fellowship (PCA) on Lookout Mountain. Please feel free to contact him at eric@rockcreekfellowship.org or follow him on Twitter @GEricYoungblood.

 


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