ACID RAIN

During the summers of my high school, college, and seminary years, I put together a string of jobs in which I compiled an underwhelming record. In all but one, no matter the employment, I was inept.

I exaggerated the importance of my first summer job in high school to those who asked, "What are you doing this summer"-- I answered, "I'm helping to feed the nation." (I sacked groceries for customers at a supermarket.)

THE CHICKENS

One high school summer you could find me chopping cotton in the blazing heat, going about that blasted task with the protection of a sweat-soaked straw hat, gloves, and sunscreen. That was also the summer I had the notorious job of vaccinating chickens, one by one, by the hundreds. (I was a success at that filthy task--not one of them got sick on my watch.)

THE BANK

Other jobs in other summers came along--for three college summers, the gods of Citizens National Bank made the mistake of placing me in the printing department, then another summer they give me the mind-numbing task of photocopying musty canceled checks bound in brittle rubber bands that must have been used by the ancient Pharaoh Khufu, 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, in the bank basement, no less, world without end, amen.

THE CEMENT PLANT

But the most miserable job ever in the history of mankind fell came my way during the summer of 1968; that was the summer I went to work for the Portland Cement Company, and thereby hangs a tale.

One day on the job, it happened--the event that had been dreaded by all us drones all summer--the large, ever so huge turning cylinder in which the cement was mixed or manufactured or whatever (I never really understood what its function was) got all clogged up with the cement. They call the wind Moriah and we called the clog, "The Ring," because that's what it was, a ring of cement which had gradually formed, projecting outward from the walls of the cylinder.

The the cylinder ground to a stop, an alarm as loud as the Muslim call to prayer sounded and the managers told us peasants that, after lunch, to report for duty to go into the hell that was the cylinder, and blast that cement ring to kingdom come with jackhammers.

There are no printable words to describe what we were about to enter, so I'll skip much of the story. The heat inside that behemoth was life-threatening if the teams of four stayed inside too long, so a manager timed the stay of each team sent in to blast that thing to bits.

To my horror, standing at the back of the line waiting for the time to enter the cylinder with my team, I saw the managers carry out one member of the first team. He was unconscious and they unceremoniously dumped him into the back of a pick-up, and off the driver went to a local hospital.

Prior to entry into the beast, the management team (mostly made up of sadists who loved to put it to us "college boys") took us to a staging area to get equipped for clear and present danger that was to come. "To get ready" meant to get dressed in heavy suits, hoods, and gloves because, as they warned us, "Acid will be dripping from the top of the cylinder and if that acid gets on your skin, it'll burn its way clear through to the other side of your arm or leg or hand," they cautioned. Arm? Leg? Hand? Those were some of my favorite limbs!

Wonderful. In all that hell-hot heat, we had to wear those heavy suits, hoods, and gloves so the dripping acid wouldn't eat through us. Could the job get any worse? I wondered: if the acid can burn its way through us, why couldn't it burn its way through our suits? 

THAT WAS THE DECADE OF ACID

It was in the time of my Portland Cement Company humiliation that it became fashionable to rebel against the foundations of Western Civilization--marriage, family, an absolute morality, the church, and the schools. All over the country, teachers, students, the artists, the intellectual elites of America were releasing acid on those foundations, wanting to tear them apart and establish a new morality, a situational ethic, new definitions, and an anything goes immoral code in its place.

LSD, communes, the San Francisco lifestyle, Haight-Ashbury, flower power, were the rage and all promoted with the slogan invented by one-time West Point cadet, Timothy Leary: "Turn on, tune in, and drop out." It was also at this time that "Don't trust anyone over thirty" became popular. The acid would burn through parental authority with that motto.

It was the decade of violent radicals' occupying administration buildings on campuses across America demanding an end to classical studies of Western Civilization. Their chant was, "Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Civ. has got to go." It was the decade of the "Filthy Speech Movement," the Black Panthers, the Weathermen, and Woodstock. 

Liberal arts courses changed from emphasizing the classics of Western literature, Latin, American history, and ancient history to emphasizing women's studies and any subjects other than studying the wisdom of "Dead white males." They were politicizing the campuses across America.

THE HARVEST HAS COME

We're reaping the harvest of those days. The acid has done its work: it's burned through and redefined marriage, education, the family, and free speech. It's politicized everything, including funerals. The acid burned through education and changed it to political indoctrination, even at the elementary school level, all the way up through graduate school. (A case in point is English professor Beth Leuck of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater who recently gave extra credit to students who attended an anti-Gov. Scott Walker rally. What the rally had to do with courses in literature is a good question.)

The acid has burned through the family and redefined it, as reflected in the children's book, "Heather Has Two Mommies," published in 1994.

Those who dare to try to neutralize the acid are placed in sensitivity training, humiliated, hounded, shamed, punished, fired, sued (Arlene Stutzman of Washington state was sued and lost and fined $2,000 for each violation of the law because of her refusal to make a floral arrangement for a same-sex marriage. He lawyer said, ""Her home, her business ... her life savings and retirement, these are all in jeopardy ... all because of her deeply held religious views.") At the very least, a person may be harassed until forced to apologize to the nation for their "crimes."

ACID IS AS ACID DOES

When we donned those protective suits to go into the darkness and battle the ring, we did so because, whether we knew anything about chemistry or not, we knew one thing: acid is dangerous. And why is it dangerous? Because it doesn't know when to stop.

That's the way it is with wanting to tear everything down. That's the way it is when you start the acid rain on the foundations of our culture--the acid doesn't know when to quit; it burns up everything. A culture is left with nothing other than moral anarchy and darkness.

LISTEN UP, BOYS AND GIRLS

As the acid burns its way through our culture, so much of that culture resting on the foundation of Christian underpinnings, we've gotten to the point that it's a crime to be gender specific. A city in Nebraska advises its teachers to refrain from saying, "Boys and girls . . ." Teachers may call their young wards, "Readers," "Students," or "Purple penguins." (Yes, really, "Purple penguins.") City University of New York directs its professors not to address the students by "Mr." or "Miss," or Mrs," even though it's obvious that they are either a "Mr.," or a "Miss," or a "Mrs."

Minnesota proposes legislation stating that boys can play on girls' athletic teams and girls can play on boys' teams,  if the boy believes himself to be girl and a girl believes herself to be a boy. 

On December 1, 2014, Stella Morabito wrote in opposition to the legislation:

"In this scheme, there would be no accounting for sex differences in high school sports on the field or in locker rooms, bathrooms, and hotel rooms. It forbids any camaraderie rooted in the biological reality of one’s sex, or any consideration of the reality of the opposite sex. In fact, to affirm that reality would basically be a crime. So the policy would ultimately abolish girls’ and boys’ sports alike.

She concludes:

"In the end, it’s really all about giving social engineers a license to bully. So Minnesotans have some basic choices to make. Will they support all girls and boys? Or primarily boys who say they are girls and girls who say they are boys? Will they side with special privileges for select groups or universal protection from bullying? They have to choose."

MAY WE ASK?

There are two questions on our minds: "Where does this stop? When is enough, enough?" The answer is obvious: never. Acid never stops because that's the nature of acid. Acid is a bully.

THE WAY OF SIN, THE WAY OF THE FLESH

That's the way the acid of sin is in our lives. It may start small, but if not stopped, it'll bully and burn its way to destroying everything near and dear to the sinner. Just ask the pastor I head about--a prescription drug here, a prescription drug there, and the acid of addiction began to burn through his life. It bullied him until it got its way--it burned through his marriage, his children, his profession, and his house. It didn't stop until it had taken everything, even his friendships.

HOPELESS?

I went into that cylinder, got everything fouled up with my jackhammer, but wonder of wonders, I escaped the acid and lived to tell you the tale of that miserable day. I've never gone back into such a cylinder again.

We're helpless against the acid. We have free will, we don't have to stand under the acid rain or the acid drip of sin. We don't have to let it the acid rain continue. The way to stop the acid is get in and then live in Romans 8: The Holy Spirit, the life of the Spirit (obedience to the Word) crushes and banishes the bully.