During the late 1930’s and early 1940’s while Europe was embattled in the beginnings of WWII most of America was assuming a posture of isolationism. Basically, let’s not get involved in another European conflict; let them deal with it themselves.
The reasons were plenty. Two decades after the war to end all wars America just wanted to get through its depression and get back on its feet again. It’s hard to worry about what the neighbors are doing when you are worrying about finding enough for the kids to eat or keeping the family farm.
With this past Memorial Day weekend and June 6th coming in next week I’ve been taking a few moments to reflect. This is what I’m thinking:
On June 6th, 1944 my grandfather’s younger brother, Harry Shay, was in a landing craft headed toward Omaha beach as part of the third wave of soldiers to assault the German defenses. As I visited with him just last year (right before he passed away) he spoke of the difficulties of making headway through the pounding the Germans were throwing at them and the friends he lost that day. His wife, Lorraine, said that he had been recently waking in the night screaming names of people she had not heard of before. When I asked him about what was happening he told the gruesome details of how friends were killed and the guilt he felt of decisions he made that now made him ask, “Why am I the one who is alive?”
He told of the artillery, the noise and mayhem, the beach held no safe place and the tide coming in on them. He told of the machine gun fire crisscrossing the fields as they reached the top of the bluffs. He told how they reached the hedgerows and found that the Germans had the best fortified positions by just using the giant hedgerows as a natural shield and barrier from the American assault. He said that they couldn’t move without exposing themselves to the gunfire.
“It was us farm boys from Wisconsin, I’m proud to say, that said, ‘get us a torch and a welder up here and we’ll put some teeth on these tanks and bust through these hedgerows!’” He said. But with every story he had of a victory or a good idea he had one of loss and trouble and death too. But it was the initiative of those individual soldiers, the citizen soldiers as author Stephen Ambrose called them, that was able to get them through the difficulties of not only that day but it’s what shook America out of its isolationism.
I said, “Harry, why did you volunteer to sign up in the first place?” His answer kind of surprised me. He said, “The whole world was in trouble and we knew it. If we didn’t do something about it we were all going to be in trouble. So, me and my three buddies went down together and signed up…that’s all there was to it. We had to.”
We had to… I thought. No you didn’t. You guys chose to. Stephen Ambrose contends that Hitler gambled that the sons of a dictatorship would be better soldiers than the sons of a democratic society. He figured that the boy Scouts couldn’t produce the kind of man that his dictatorship could. He was wrong. The difference? Initiative.
Initiative awakened America out of its isolation to see the need. Initiative caused Harry and his pals and tens of thousands of others to march down to the recruiting offices and sign up for the fight. Initiative kept them going when the task or sight before them was more than bearable. Initiative allowed their training to kick in and apply it to their dangerous situations. Instead of hiding behind the obstacles trying to stay away from the machine gun fire and artillery burst initiative caused them to move forward and get to the tidal wall out of the line of fire. The men who tried to stay out on the beach and hide behind the obstacles were more likely to be killed.
I believe the church can take a lesson from this today.
Christians are always tempted to stay away from the “bad” things going on around us and keep to ourselves, to crawl into an attitude of isolationism, or safety, to hide behind our personal convictions or political affiliations or even Christianity itself. DON’T DO IT! It’s not what we are called to do. We are called to be salt and light in a dark and troubled world. When we became a follower and disciple of Jesus we signed up. Not to get away from the trouble, but to contend with it! When we begin to recognize that the whole world is in spiritual trouble, lost and wandering aimlessly without God, then we’ll have been awakened by understanding and ready for initiative which is not based solely on training and memorization of tactics, or God’s laws, but on wisdom from God. Solomon explains why he wrote the proverbs down for us:
Proverbs 1:2-7 Their purpose is to teach people wisdom and discipline, to help them understand the insights of the wise. Their purpose is to teach people to live disciplined and successful lives, to help them do what is right, just, and fair. These proverbs will give insight to the simple, knowledge and discernment to the young. Let the wise listen to these proverbs and become even wiser. Let those with understanding receive guidance by exploring the meaning in these proverbs and parables, the words of the wise and their riddles. Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.
Solomon wants to equip us with wisdom and understanding so we may take some initiative with confidence and DO our life with God instead of hiding from the turmoil around us hoping to get through safe and sound.
Proverbs 3:5-7 Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend in your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the Lord and turn away from evil.
Fear of the Lord recognizes total dependence on God for everything, including knowledge and wisdom. Fear of the Lord is the basis of all knowledge. How can we understand life without knowing the most fundamental truth about it – that it is God’s creation? It is not just a mental attitude but involves service, love, and obeying God’s laws and some initiative on our part to be awakened to the trouble around us and get involved.
Thanks, Harry, for choosing wisely and setting a good example for me to follow! RIP.
No comments:
Post a Comment