Willfully Deaf, Dumb and Blind?

You’ve Seen a Lot, but Looked at Nothing  [Isaiah 32 – The Message]

¹⁸Pay attention! Are you deaf?

Open your eyes! Are you blind?

¹⁹You’re my servant, and you’re not looking!

You’re my messenger, and you’re not listening!

The very people I depended upon, servants of God,

blind as a bat—willfully blind!

²⁰You’ve seen a lot, but looked at nothing.

You’ve heard everything, but listened to nothing.

²¹God intended, out of the goodness of his heart,

to be lavish in his revelation.

²²But this is a people battered and cowed,

shut up in attics and closets,

Victims licking their wounds,

feeling ignored, abandoned.

²³But is anyone out there listening?

Is anyone paying attention to what’s coming?

²⁴Who do you think turned Jacob over to the thugs,

let loose the robbers on Israel?

Wasn’t it God himself, this God against whom we’ve sinned—

not doing what he commanded,

not listening to what he said?

²⁵Isn’t it God’s anger that’s behind all this,

God’s punishing power?

Their whole world collapsed but they still didn’t get it;

their life is in ruins but they don’t take it to heart.

I know we live in the post-Christian age. Oh, we may claim belief in significant numbers, and I am sure there are many believers, but in terms of the knowledge and practice of Christianity it is a thing of the past, a past the perhaps never was. The same can be said of many religions; people may proclaim their beliefs but their knowledge and practice again leaves much to be desired. We could also call this a post-Moslem age, a post-Hindu age, a post Buddhist age, a post Jewish age, a post whatever age.  I lament such a time.

Paul Ryan is the House representative of my state Wisconsin, the running mate of Romney in the past election and currently serves as the chair of the House Budget Committee. He is a practicing Roman Catholic and makes a good appearance. He also his adherent of the philosophy of Ayn Rand, who is the author of Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead, two intriguing books. He says the Ayn rand inspired him to enter the world of politics. He also believes that social security is a socialism-based system. With Ayn Rand he believes in limited government and a laissez faire economic system – just let capitalism rip without controls. Ayn Rand or Alisa Zino’yevna Rosenbaum was a Russian-American and a devout atheist. She believed in rational-egotism or rational self-interest. I also think it safe to say she is not taken very seriously by the academic community.

Both these individuals, while they are God’s children, appear to me to be individuals the prophet Isaiah describes as being intentionally deaf, blind, but not dumb (meaning they both talk a lot.)

They seem to be willing blind to the lessons of the past where the philosophies they subscribe to were the rule of the day and messed up the country. They are blind to the economics that lead us out of the morass of limited government intervention and laissez faire economics to times of prosperity and middle class growth.

In Ryan’s case he is our representative, a public servant to the people he is supposed to serve but seem deaf to his constituents listening only to the wealthy and a small group with similar ideological beliefs. He is like the robbers of Israel whose moral compass is not in tune with his professed religious teachings. Our world is collapsing under such self inflicted blindness and deafness and the country suffers for it.

I single Ryan out because there are those who follow his precepts in a similar blind and deaf and dumb pattern. Those who are not informed about the workings of our republic, nor apply their religious heritage to today’s issues. And many today feel like the victims licking their wounds feeling ignored and abandoned and not listened to.

Congress may find it politically expedient to have a chaplain and have prayer at the beginnings of sessions, but they and we would be well served if they took those relationships with the deity and the teachings of religion seriously as they lead our country.

There are many in this country set upon by robbers and lie beaten at the side of the road in poverty and in peril and we are in need of a good Samaritan, not those who choose to go to the other side of the road to ignore those in pain but cater to the lesser gods of power and wealth. The chair of the budget committee of the richest country on earth ought to pay attention to the needs of all its citizens and do right by them.