Frettin'*

 

“Do not fret because of evil men . . .” Psalm 37:1

My mother, who is gloriously upbeat in many ways, tells me she thinks the world is sinking toward some black hole that will suck most all of us in, until the Lord, in glory, comes again. She frets about some of our culture’s seamy edges, and her continual frettin’ affects her mood. She listens to too many radio talk show hosts.

She’s old enough to deserve my respect no matter what her views or how much she frets; besides, she’s my mother. But I’m not taken by the way she flirts with darkness because I don’t think she should spend the last years of her life frettin’ the way she does.

We live in strange times. I don’t think it’s possible to locate an era in the last century or more when spirituality was ever quite so popular. Most Americans claim to believe in God. A significant majority go to worship frequently. Crime has been down, as is drug use, as is teen-age pregnancy. Even abortion rates are lower than they were.

Just about every college student I know wears a T-shirt with a Bible verse. Students flock to praise-n-worship gatherings voluntarily and exude a piety that existed only among the most devout kids just twenty years ago. Lots of parents tell me their kids are far more spiritually mature at 18 than they themselves were at that age. Most of them go on church work groups or missions, many of them to the poorest regions of the world. Where I live, faith is almost hip.

For the last few years, the U. S. government has been in the hands of Bible-totin’ Republicans, my mother’s party. Many politicos and pundits claim the 2004 Presidential election was a wake-up call to many opinion-leaders who never took Christians seriously. Most major newspapers now concede that for too long they didn’t have a clue about a huge segment of the populace—evangelicals. Today, the media features stories about faith.

It’s difficult to argue that we’re all going to hell in a handbasket, although Mom thinks so. What troubles her is that this Christian nation is becoming secular, forbidding prayer and tolerating abortion, tossing the Ten Commandments.

I think she’s frettin’ way too much. She thinks I’m far worse off—a liberal.

In the world where I live, wind storms, “dusters,” got so thick and black in the Thirties they killed people. When a big one blew up in Oklahoma or Kansas or western Nebraska, when things got really dark in the middle of the day and wet blankets or sealed up windows couldn’t keep dirt out of the house, good Christians thought it was, quite literally, the end of the world.

A host of believers I know plot out the trajectory of the times in the same direction—today things are just getting worse and worse and worse. . .

Maybe I just don’t fret enough. Maybe I will in a few years. Maybe it’s another sign of aging.

I know this—both Mom and I can take heart from verse one of Psalm 37, which says, in a nutshell, “don’t do that.” The enemies—whoever they are—aren’t worth my time or anxiety, nor are they worth hers: don’t fret ‘em away.

Next week I’ll quote that verse to her. Maybe it will help.

Probably not. She’ll still think I’m a liberal.

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*I don't think I need to say that this one isn't new :). Mom's gone, Trump's not, and but I have to confess that I'm still a liberal. For the record, she wasn't fond of this one.