The Northwest enterprise. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1931-1952, 1941-03-07
Good Neighbors
by S. 7. McCants
DESPONDENCY:

respondent is to be without courage
or hope. In our column this issue,
we shall endeavor to explain some
of the facts, that create this dis
NAL state of mind to so many hui
man beings of this earth. You will
agree with me that a man of today
can easily be fed up with the trout
bles and trials that enshroud him.
He turns tart and Grabbed, with a
number of acid remarks to make
about human life. You will find
many who are very sour and bitter
concerning things in general. They
lash out at men and nations, call
them all pack of fools, stupid i'd
lots gone mad, not worth working
for. They throw up the sponge for
church, state, and university, laugh
at religion and nail a sign on hea-
ven that God has gone away for
repairs Why do these people lose
faith in everything and often des-
troy themselves? They have lost
faith in humanity and they fail to
realize that they should have never
pinned their faith to humanity In
the first place.
One trouble with our world Is
that we have been pestered to death
with the doctrine that all we had
to do was to give humanity
chance. Educate it, give it voice
in Government, put all the mag
nificant discoveries of science at
its disposal write some laws for it,
get it to sign a few treaties and
promise to behave, then turn 1t
loose to build the glorious future.
When we try to stand upon these
thoughts, many of us conspire to
make light of religion, and we rele-
gate God to the limbs of kindly old
gentlemen who are nice, but don't
really matter any more. We have
got to be sane, as sane as the New
Testament. 1t says we are nothing
at all to brag about, with our brief
life, stained somehow at the very
start. 1t understands that we are
quite helpless of ourselves, sees us
tugging away desperately at a thing
called sin, which is so far down in
side of us that nobody can guess
where it roots. We know that the
New Testament is right, we also
know that human nature is capable
of being the low and high side, it
runs the whole gamut from He'll to
Heaven and back again. Right
there is your own body and then
we wonder why this God we serve
who does not exist allows wars,
and destruction to go on through
out the earth. The God that does
exist is a realist. We can see for
the trouble we've got into following
our own device. When Christ says
love your enemies, he isn't playing
around with a decorative idea.
When he says blessed are the mer-
ciful and the meek, he isn't paint
ing lilies and rainbows. He is strip
ping existence to it's foundation and
showing you the bed rock. So, by
the same token when he begins
making promises, when he says
what he can do with anybody, he's
still in earnest. When he offers us
pardon he isn't adding something
to life that life can do without and
still get along very well. He is lay
ing down the only sure basic there
is for life. 1t was the realism of
Jesus Christ that held Paul. It's
the only thing that will hold us. We
should not become respondent in
these dark hours of human exper-
fence. Take the exiled Jews in Bah
ylon. 1t was out of their wretched-
ness that the grandeur came, the
glory of an unconquerable faith in
the sovereignty and the goodness of
God, singing it's way through the
years. There was Jesus in front of
Plate for one brief hour. Now, to
the end of the ages, its PLATE in
front of Jesus, under the steady
judgment of those clear eyes, or
take Paul before Festus and Agrip-
pa. 1t isn't the governor that mat
tiers any more, and it isn't the king,
and it isn't the Emperor that later
put Paul to death; it's Paul him
self, this man in chains that mat
tiers. Victory does somehow seem
to thrive on defeat in this odd
world. That's why I pray God to
let me gaze breathlessly at life
when it goes wrong. All we have
to do half the time is to get Gods
view, and begin to look at life as
whole and not at the little cor
ner of it which is ourselves. There
is something thrilling about life
when you see it whole. The sweat
and blood the low and traoodxr II