Our Lives in Exile

             Rachel Maddow had a wonderful analogy on her program the other day when she was talking about the looming crisis over the debt ceiling and what ignoring it would mean for the country, our economy and the standing of the United States in the rest of the world.  She talked about Captain Ahab chasing the White Whale.  She said that there was a boat launched from the Pequod with the Captain and members of his crew.  They hit the whale with a harpoon that was tethered to the boat by a rope.  The angered whale began to swim, towing the boat with it.  If the whale sounded, meaning diving to the bottom of the sea, the boat would go with it and they would all be drowned.  The captain had a hatchet on board that could be used to cut the rope and free the boat from the whale; but the rest of the crew protested when he wanted to use it and kept him from cutting the rope.  Maddow suggested that this is what is going on with our congress and Speaker Boehner; that a small group in congress, the most radical of the Tea Party members, is keeping the speaker from finding a solution to the debt crisis. They are all willing to go over the edge into whatever comes in the name of decreasing the government and defunding the Affordable Care Act. 

            Her analogy certainly makes a lot of sense to me, particularly since the “full faith and credit” of the United States is being placed in jeopardy by this move by congress to not pay the bills that they have incurred.  We wonder what will happen if we indeed go over the edge and the debt ceiling is ignored.  There is no doubt that a lot will happen.  Interest rates will likely go up and middle class people will find it more difficult to obtain loans for cars or homes.  Other nations will cease to look to us for leadership and the dollar will cease to be the standard used by the rest of the world.  Much of this could be devastating in terms of our standing among the nations of the world.

            The words of Jeremiah the prophet strike me today as being good advice for all of us if we are headed into a place of exile from the country that we love so very much.  He tells the Hebrew people who have been taken hostage by the Babylonians not to despair, but to continue to live their lives; to build houses and to live in them, to create families and offspring and to live as close to normality as possible.  He tells his people to seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.  That seems to me to be excellent advice for a people headed for trouble.  We all need to continue to live our lives, regardless of what a rebellious congress decides to do.  The next election will certainly be an opportunity to weed some of these people out of the national legislature; but the final answer to this is the rest of us cleaving to whatever part of normality that we can find until a final answer is created.  That might not seem like much at this moment in time.  But our prayer continues to be that God’s Grace may always precede and follow us that we may be continually given to good works.  Our trust in that Grace is all that keeps us from ultimate failure, regardless of what people in congress may do.