Sunday, June 15, 2008

The Parable of Lot's Wife

Spending some time here in Utah at a family reunion. It is wonderful to see all the cousins and second cousins and gazzillionth cousins. Having a family that is half Mormon and half Catholic tends to lead to large family reunions.

Everyone there was talking about the economy and how things are changing. But the bulk of them are of the belief that, because this is America, and nothing bad ever happens to America, they can keep leading their lifestyle. The Hummers and the pickup trucks and the suburbans lent further credence to the belief that things won't change that much.

But the older folks, especially the Mormons, were counseling battening down the hatches and getting prepared for the storm. Some of the younger kin were listening, but for the most part, few wanted to accept the possibility that things could go wrong, maybe even seriously wrong. Because the mortgage payments were due on the McMansion and the Hummer, things can't go wrong.

I think that we are going to have to accept some causalities in this process. There are some folks that aren't going to make it through to the other side. In a way, we are looking at a situation similar to Lot and his family leaving Sodom and Gomorrah. You have to turn away. In a way, prepping is a big part of the turning away. But it isn't the stuff that you buy for your basement. It is the ability to define what are the critical paths for your survival and holding to those. A great deal of the turning away will be rejecting the subtle evil of the unnecessary.

So be careful to keep your eyes on the prize. Hold fast to the essential and reject the spurious. Because, when push comes to shove, trying to hold onto the whimsical and shallow desires of the manufactured, mass-market culture may very well be your ticket to being a pillar of salt.

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