Beyond Duck Dynasty

With so many thoughts surrounding our latest cultural controversy, my mind began to ruminate:

The pundits they line up with points in their mind,

Who is right, who is wrong, a binary truth to define.

polarized left and polarized right;

who said just what is embellished with time.

Sensibilities are offended on the left and the right,

Status updates are filled with a rhetoric of might.

This is freedom of speech!

He’s against my way of life!

Can you feel the battle lines drawn? Can you sense the indignant plight?

The rhetoric is shoveled, will any mind change?

Do we really believe everyone else is insane?

God sighs when both sides use His Words as a weapon,

When grace and peace are disguised, thinly veiled as we threaten.

I wonder, in the midst of the verbal assault,

have we perhaps missed the point?

are our positions at fault?

Have we created a chasm that no one can cross?

Have we argued to death the straw-man that is lost?

Buried beneath the hurling flames,

There are question to ask, not labels to claim.

What does this whirlwind say about us?

as a culture, as a people, what matters so much…

is it ratings and money and how I want to be?

or perhaps as a nation have we worshipped at the altar of me…

Ignorance blinds us to the larger story,

The one where God is displaying His glory.

of love and rescue, of grace and truth,

no lost eyes, and no broken tooth.

Above the schoolyard fights of my way or yours,

There is an answer that is deeper than our Olympus culture wars.

**epilogue

So when the embers have settled and you know that you’re right,

Have you actually won, or have we all lost the fight.