"Of The Day" Double Whammy

This past weekend I went with Mrs. Gadfly to New York City to cheer on her step-mom in the NYC Marathon. We had a fun weekend, and we're so proud of her step-mom, who finished the race strong. Go Kellie!

Since I haven't been on the blog in 3 days, I thought I would make it up to you with a double-post of a Don West poem and a Reinhold Niebuhr quote. After the election is over tonight (assuming legal challenges don't prolong this business), I'll have some final words on the topic of politics, and then I'll move on to another topic: Missions. It's an extremely important topic for every Christian, but is sadly one of the most neglected and misunderstood aspects of our faith.

I pair the following quote and poem on purpose to say this: there is nothing new under the sun. The injustices that present themselves to us in our day are no different than the ones faced by Christians of every generation. The question God poses to each of us in every era is, "will you love your neighbor?"

"...a laissez faire economic theory is maintained in an industrial era through the ignorant belief that the general welfare is best served by placing the least possible political restraints upon economic activity. The history of the past 100 years is a refutation of the theory; but it is still maintained, or is dying a too lingering death, particularly in nations as politically incompetent as our own. Its survival is due to the ignorance of those who suffer injustice from the application of this theory to modern industrial life but fail to attribute their difficulties to the social anarchy and political irresponsibility which the theory sanctions."

(Niebuhr, "Moral Man and Immoral Society", 1935)

Factory Child

What chance now for Margaret Biggs

To grow in stature, heart and head?

She breathes foul dust and rotted lint

Among the wheels to earn her bread.

And while her lungs are eaten out,

Her eyes stare hungrily through space,

Eyes that sink at eventide

Within a sallow, longful face...

Better for her if she had gone,

From womb of flesh into the earth,

Or if she had not come at all

To cause some woman pangs of birth.

Soon she will have a pauper's grave,

Pitted deep in nameless sod...

Another child for Potter's Field

While churchmen sing and praise their God.

(West, date unknown)