Surreptitious Saturday

THE PEOPLE NEXT TO US

"God wants us to be aware always of the people next to us. It's not enough to work honestly & industriously, for Christ calls us to be a priesthood of believers who willingly take responsibility for those who are our neighbors."  Bruce Larson, Men's Devotional Bible

CHRIST'S HUMILITY

Christ is our manna. This Lenten season, I hope to lose myself in imitation of Christ’s humility. I hope to stop serving for gain. I hope to stop ruminating over the existential dread of being forgotten and irrelevant. Can I? Can I truly serve for the sake of others alone? Can I be less concerned with my performance and more concerned with my brother’s pain? Can I lend a hand to my sister without receiving praise and recognition? Can I give my all for the sake of the other and not to move up a ladder? Can I happily move down the ladder in order to pull others up?  Derek Caldwell, Slice of Infinity

PLASTIC BAGS

"Single-use plastic bags are a miracle of modern technology. Cheap, light, convenient, and ubiquitous, they provide an elegant solution to a problem. If you recycle them, as most people do, and put your rubbish in them, that creates a net reduction in carbon emissions compared with buying the heavier, thicker garbage bags sold in stores. Best of all, they’re sanitary . . . The war on single-use bags is, as John Tierney put it in his definitive debunking of plastic-bag hysteria, a solution that has been for many years in search of a problem. (Originally the problem was that plastic bags are petroleum products, and we were about to run out of oil.) No, the garbage in the oceans is not made up of plastic bags used in the West. Our single-use bags wind up in landfills. And what’s wrong with landfills? Not much. They’re all around us. They’re fine. As with everything else, technology has greatly improved them, even to the point where the methane emitted can be recaptured."  Kyle Smith, National Review Online 4/4

POLITICAL POTPOURRI

"The fact is, Biden can’t fundraise effectively because he can’t lead or inspire — and every appearance the candidate makes only serves to remind the public of those glaring deficiencies. 

"The former Vice President has always been a follower and a lackey, as his opponents were eager to point out in the early days of the Democratic presidential primary process. Time and again, the other Democrat candidates called Biden out for exaggerating his political significance and taking unjustified credit for Obama administration policies. They also didn’t take kindly to his opportunistic appropriation of the far-left policy proposals introduced by extremist candidates such as Senator Bernie Sanders.

"The real test of Biden’s leadership, however, has come during the coronavirus pandemic, and he’s failing in phenomenal fashion. All Biden has done is repeat discredited Democrat talking points and demonstrate a remarkable lack of knowledge about both the pandemic and the country’s strategy for defeating it.  Kimberly Guilfoyle, Townhall, 4/3

CORONA VIRUS

. . . . . put me down as a skeptic. You can't go home again. The shattering events of March, followed by what is coming in April and May, will have lasting impacts on the hearts and minds of this generation.  Patrick Buchanan, Townhall, 4/3

"The government should not be targeting churches. But churches should be responsible. Go volunteer in the community, and seek the welfare of your cities. On Easter, join a Livestream to worship together with the global body of Christ. Christians need to reject false bravado for Christian humility right now, and they need to seek the welfare of their communities through service and by staying away from in-person gatherings."  Erick Erickson, Townhall, 4/3