I make constant allegations which, to a varying degree, I can back up with easily proven evidence. Today, I have the goods. I have long maintained that the worst possible stewards of the minds of children are the government minions in charge of public education. The offering of the day is, I’ll admit, regionally affected by factors other than just the school administration. However this is exemplary of that old parable about the talents. In this circumstance, the talents were not buried or allowed to remain idle; they were willfully destroyed.
The link contains nineteen pictures of various views within the depository. They loaded slowly for me because with satellite internet service, I only download at 350 KBs. You needn’t look at them all. Just a few will give you the idea.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sweetjuniper/2066872860/in/set-72157603302647339/
At first view, one suspects a fire or a flood caused this carnage. Closer inspection reveals that any fires were limited and probably set by vandals. Obviously, any time you neglect a building, depreciation of the structure will allow excessive moisture in and ruin the interior and its contents. Some of the chaos evident in the photos was caused by the recovery of usable furniture and lumber from the areas shown. One rarely sees a bookcase or pallets. There is also the presence of “gang” signs every where with its obvious implications.
Although I have no confirmation, it would be a safe wager that many of the people responsible for this building are still on the payroll. There is no reason to believe under current policy that they would have less job protection than the incompetents who man the classrooms. Given its size, one can only imagine the immense actual dollar cost of its construction and contents. Having examined some text books in current usage, it is entirely possible the destruction of some of these would work for the good of the students.
This travesty should concern us as Christians at many levels. First in my mind is the matter of stewardship. The Master took a dim view of waste. He was concerned with the acceleration of assets and their care and keeping. See talents, sheep, oil for lamps, wheat and tares, and other familiar biblical stories and references. From Genesis 1 he gave us the gift of our earth and its contents for our careful use. The only examples of willful destruction are reprisal in the face of sin or the acts of the sinners. Those who are not among the faithful to His teachings are promised a terrible end in the latter days. Even though not local, this waste of resources can probably be traced to our individual communities to a lesser or, God forbid, greater degree.
Our second highest concern should be loss of liberty in the process of teaching the young. The need for this building was the storage of teaching materials. Yes, it was more than likely they used it to martial material for distribution during the school year. But I see its primary function as the warehousing of unused and “out of date” teaching aids. Is a physics book out of date because they repealed the laws of gravity? Is a math text no longer useful because speed problems are expressed in “mph” rather than “kph?” Is a literary work (see “Huckleberry Finn”) obsolete because we can’t see political correctness in the genius of the author? In today’s world, No Child Left Behind equates to “no child left to think.” We all recognize the effort to ban any text in any subject which offers the slightest defense of creationism or its author, God Almighty. Thus, by banishing these volumes to their fate of being destroyed through neglect in the depository makes sense to the formers of the new social construct. Once abandoned, any text which sees Jesus Christ as other than an historical curiosity can be allowed to molder and rot. Given the Divine nature of the US Constitution I would not be surprised to see hundreds of copies lying in waste under the rubble.
Anyone who has driven through Detroit in the last decade has seen a city which more closely resembles Würtzburg shortly after World War II. Having seen both, I feel qualified to make the comparison. Vast empty spaces between crumbling buildings inhabited by feral former pets form a ring around the central business district. It has a CBD which boasts some of the most expansive and beautiful buildings in America. Built primarily for visitors on the back of US taxpayers it fulfils the definition of “bread and circuses.” The easy explanation is the decline of the auto industry. While a factor, it is simpler to point to moral decay and citizen ennui. Make no mistake; I am describing an American City, and a very large one.
Before we point the fingers at Detroit with too much enthusiasm, we should also look at our own communities and school districts. While probably not as extreme as the example cited, are the monitors of our own local school systems doing an equivalent proportional amount of damage to the children in their care? Have you, as a Christian parent or grandparent, checked out the situation in your district? If you think that kids are going to complain about getting a “softball” education, you can think again. The path of least resistance is very attractive to all of us and especially to kids. With five kids and twenty grandchildren, I have more than a passing acquaintance with their thinking.
I thank God for my daughter and one daughter-in-law for their efforts to home school my grandkids. A third is giving it prayerful consideration. Although each is a solid Christian home with a very active participating father, that is not my prime consideration. I very much want them to have the opportunity to be challenged and fail! I want them in an atmosphere where there are no stupid questions. I want them educated where the qualities of a mother’s love prevail. I freely admit to excessive pride in these families and their zeal to keep the government out of their lives. I have rendered unto Caesar and concluded I would rather render unto God.
In His abiding love,
Cecil Moon
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