Letter to the Editor: Retirement Revisited For years now my wife and I have talked about retiring in Clarion. (Even if we left for a while, we thought this would be the place to return to.) In the last couple years, though, we have begun to rethink that strategy – perhaps Clarion is not where we belong. Not because of our life or family circumstances but because the town has changed…and not for the better. For decades I have been hit with notices and fines and had building projects delayed for one mysterious ordinance or another. I chalked it up to a recalcitrant curmudgeon with an ax to grind, but the last few months have shown me that it is a bigger issue than one individual’s personality. I guess the proverbial straw came when I read the article on the front page of the News about grass clippings in the street. For 31 years, I have been mowing my lawn in the same way, and now all of a sudden, I find that I have been in violation of some sacred ordinance. I recently quipped to someone that some days I feel like I’m living in a police state. Then, I remembered that the Borough Police Chief is also now our Borough Manager…need I say more? The Borough is not alone in its anal attentiveness. We have a county hell-bent on a covert 8 million dollar annex in the midst of a crumbling economy. I don’t even want to start on the educational institutions and their asinine personnel decisions. Don’t think that I believe that the religious institutions have escaped this slippery slope, either. We have become just as good at trying to regulate God’s extravagant love and grace as the Borough does its grass. We have become a community (which is mirroring our culture) that has become fixated on rules and forgotten about the lives and relationships that built this community in the first place. All you need to note is that one of the largest employers in this county is the vast mental health/mental retardation network to realize how sick we really are. How did we get to this point? I have been pondering this question for some time. As I look at our nation and our community, I believe we have become a people who have lost our heart. Like the Tin Man, we creak and clamor around rudely engaging the world or perhaps just banging into it and each other. It is more important to have the right information, set of beliefs, or political ideology than it is to seriously take time to know someone else and try to see the world from their perspective. We have lost our passion for life and for one another. Without sounding like a conspiracy enthusiast, I believe we have been encouraged to give it up by a system of leadership that is far bigger than politics. A passionless people is easy to control. It was that way in the days of Jesus. The Roman’s supported the Pharisee system gone amuck which had turned religious observance into an adherence of correct beliefs and rituals at the expense of the people’s needs. Stories Jesus tells like the Good Samaritan or the Sabbath controversy stories illustrate this point. Jesus brought passion to the scene. He cared for the sick, the widow, the orphaned, the blind, the deaf, the crippled; he treated the physical and emotional wounds of his people; he called the people to a passion for life and one another (dangerous and seditious behavior to the controlling Roman junta)…and he even died a passionate death. (note we call his death the Passion of Christ and then try to wring every bit of passion out of it on a theological head trip). We need to get out of our heads, or at least start by getting our heads out of the dark nether- recesses where we seem to have them stuck, and stir some passion for our neighbors. Oh, we can generate a lot of heat these days with our neighbors (especially those different from us) but passion? When was the last time you sat down with someone and talked about those things that really stir your soul? When did you last take time to listen to someone else’s perspective before judging them? When did you think about its impact on others before you laid down a new ordinance or mandate or exclusivist belief system? Maybe it’s time we started….Who knows I might have to reconsider my reconsidered retirement plans! Harold “Jake” Jacobson Pastor, Grace Lutheran Church, Clarion, PA Assistant to the Bishop NWPA Synod Director for Evangelical Mission, ELCA
Posted on: Wed, 02 Jul 2014 12:33:27 +0000
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