The bladder of Truce

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/072816.cfm

Jeremiah 18:1-6
Matthew 13:47-53

My brother called me the other day, and explained a most profound miracle of sibling love and grace that took place just a few weeks earlier. All thanks to the conflict of political loyalties gone armageddon.

My youngest sister and youngest brother sat in a coffee shop discussing the polarities of the big four political rifts prevalent in today’s presidential race — economics, choice, war, and trust. I’m guessing about that. I didn’t have that much detail. But, these four polarity issues wind about under the dirt of the political garden, creating arguments over which elements of each either grow fruit or grow weeds. 

At the root of their diatribe, these issues percolated into a toxic poison. They needed God's intervention.

In any argument fostered by political polarities, staunch and verdant loyalties to clearly held beliefs clash. They parried politically for quite a while. My brother and sister clashed until their blood boiled, turning their love into a gas that dissipated and floated completely away.

The war of words probably went something like this, in my mind’s imagination.

Wealth

Wealth must be distributed by the force of law, because it is largely ill-gotten and hoarded. The wealth earners owe the poor at least half of their treasures. God hates the wealthy. 

No, wealth derives from elbow grease within familial trees that only free will can compel them to spread by either gift, taxes or investment. God blesses the wealthy.

Choices

Choices must be restricted to a communal common denominator, not religiously held morals, especially in the cases of education, healthcare, life decisions, environmental and biological science, guns, and left hand turns. Except for gender, race, and natural law. 

No, choices trump everything based upon commonly held moral values, nurtured by religious truths, natural law, and constitutions. Liberty drives the law, and order stems from the natural law, which is founded upon the creator of the universe.

War

War and violence cannot be justified when the warriors, competitors and policing agents are more powerful than their adversary. The weaker individual or entity are victims of those in power, automatically. Diplomacy resolves conflict through submission of the powerful to the cries of the weak. The powerful must be continually replaced by the weak. God loves the poor. 

No, the innocent require protection from aggressors through a voluntary, morally trained and effective defense, willing to stop aggressors at the cost of their voluntarily supplied lives. The powerful agree to be servants to the civilians and those in their care. They choose heroism, not weakness. God blesses the hero.

Trust

Trust can only be given to the experienced bureaucrat, the caring and charismatic orator, the one who grasps the educated positions, the common goals, and the majesty of their positions. Loyalty calls to the ideal and everything that sustains it, centering trust upon a few that God elevates. 

No, trust rests upon every adult, and education develops through study and experience. Leaders should be encouraged from their measured wisdom and success, and trusted through their service and a willingness to change the guard for new blood. Loyalty means standing for your friends, and loving them like Jesus.

These polarity positions are a pure fabrication, since I was not at the coffee table. I, however, felt the sting of clamor that my brother could not overcome. 

“I thought she was crazy,” he said. He inferred that she thought the same about him.

The two of them have steely jaws, which must have frightened even the most brave servers whose hands surely rattled as they poured more caffeine, like gasoline onto a fire. 

The turns of their heads to the left and the right substituted for jabs, insulting slaps of disregard turning to stiff-shouldered disdain. The nearby customers had probably run for their lives.

Or, so I imagine it.

The shift in the conversation took place due to an internal call to God, my brother explained. He immediately had to go to the bathroom, and was forced to excuse himself and cut short the nuclear portion about to erupt, which my brother thought would end their relationship altogether.

Yes, his plea for God to help was answered by a bursting bladder.

As he scuttled to the men’s room, his praying increased. As he did his business, his praying increased even more. He washed his hands, praying harder, scrubbing his fingernails. He took deep breaths. He headed back to the table, a host of new arguments lining up in his empty magazine clip. He would fire away, rejuvenated by the goodness of God’s thoughtful and clever plan for him to retreat and rearm. He may never be able to talk with her again after he unloaded his new round of ammunition, but the truth must prevail. 

As he spied the battle table where his almost former sister sat, he walked tall in his recharged warrior gear. She waved at him. 

What? 

“She’s waving at me?” 

His armor began to melt. “What is she doing?” he thought as he looked at her and saw a smile on her face. She was practically bouncing in her seat as she urged him to hurry back. She was holding her smartphone and almost yelled at him as he arrived. 

“The Rams are moving back to L.A.!”

My brother was stunned. Not that the Rams were moving back. He had figured that was a possibility some time ago, as had most of the sports-conscious world. He was stunned because that was the absolutely perfect peace truce for the two of them. 

The return of the Los Angeles Rams called up their unique brother and sister history. Like the Christmas truce of the 1914 Western Front ceasefire, where French and German soldiers put down their rifles and sang songs together, my sister and brother began reminiscing their shared youthful love of the Los Angeles Rams, and even made plans to attend a game together. 

The colosseum where the Rams played, the coaches, the players, the fans, the hours watching the games on TV, and the statistics. 

God didn’t give him ammunition. He devised a history changing truce. God’s loyalties to truth, notwithstanding, his desire for love is stronger. His answer to prayer delightful and delicious. 

The two were placed back into a place of common loyalty and common affection. They went from caustic banter to joyful reunion. God flipped the switch in a way neither could have imagined. They eagerly shifted to common ground, even joining forces.

Of course, the Broncos will destroy the Rams if they ever have cause to meet, but their sadness can also be a shared experience.