Aw Shucks
October 4, 2006
Here’s one that I can’t avoid remarking upon, since I am a bona-fide, card-carrying Kansan. I earned my stripes by “helping” my paternal grandfather with his wheat harvest in SE Kansas in the early forties. I’ve often wondered what he was thinking when his 13-year-old grandson drove off toward the grain elevator at the wheel of his pickup truck towing a 4-wheeled trailer full of wheat. (I think I know what Dad thought. It wasn’t his idea.) What an adventure it was for me!
Kruse Kronicle: How Democrats Fail the “Aw Shucks” Test
Kruse is talking about a book, What’s the Matter with Kansas, the gist of which you can figure out from the second quote, and he was reminded of an earlier book that classified Kansas as a “breadbasket state.”
…To this day, a visitor to the Breadbasket who, when asked, must admit that he lives in the East, repeatedly has to put up with natives going through their “aw shucks” routine.
Before the stranger has a chance to peep the slightest opinion about his surroundings, the local goes through this song and dance, shaking his head and allowing as how it’s tough to find fresh abalone in Tulsa and the Library of Congress isn’t in Wichita, and he knows how that must weigh heavy on the mind.
He doesn’t believe a word of it. He’s just trying to find out if the outlander is ignorant enough to bite at the statement. His conviction is that the Breadbasket is the best place to live in the whole world.
But back to What’s the Matter:
“The largely blue collar citizens of Kansas can be counted upon to be a “red” state in any election, voting solidly Republican and possessing a deep animosity toward the left. This, according to author Thomas Frank, is a pretty self-defeating phenomenon, given that the policies of the Republican Party benefit the wealthy and powerful at the great expense of the average worker. According to Frank, the conservative establishment has tricked Kansans, playing up the emotional touchstones of conservatism and perpetuating a sense of a vast liberal empire out to crush traditional values while barely ever discussing the Republicans’ actual economic policies and what they mean to the working class. Thus the pro-life Kansas factory worker who listens to Rush Limbaugh will repeatedly vote for the party that is less likely to protect his safety, less likely to protect his job, and less likely to benefit him economically.”
In short, Kansans are stupid twits who don’t know how to vote in their own best interest.
A badge of honor, I’d say.
Dave, A city-bred hayseed.
Philippians 2:19-30
October 1, 2006
Models for Ministry
2:19 Now I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you quickly, so that I too may be encouraged by hearing news about you. 2:20 For there is no one here like him who will readily demonstrate his deep concern for you. 2:21 Others are busy with their own concerns, not those of Jesus Christ. 2:22 But you know his qualifications, that like a son working with his father, he served with me in advancing the gospel. 2:23 So I hope to send him as soon as I know more about my situation, 2:24 though I am confident in the Lord that I too will be coming soon.
2:25 But for now I have considered it necessary to send Epaphroditus to you. For he is my brother, coworker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to me in my need. 2:26 Indeed, he greatly missed all of you and was distressed because you heard that he had been ill. 2:27 In fact he became so ill that he nearly died. But God showed mercy to him–and not to him only, but also to me–so that I would not have grief on top of grief. 2:28 Therefore I am all the more eager to send him, so that when you see him again you can rejoice and I can be free from anxiety. 2:29 So welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor people like him, 2:30 since it was because of the work of Christ that he almost died. He risked his life so that he could make up for your inability to serve me.
It must have been hard for Paul not to know at first hand how the church he had established at Phillipi was faring. He was writing from prison, probably in Rome, so he was not free to hop on the next merchant ship heading for Phillipi, a Roman colony in Macedonia. He seems to be wrestling with the idea of sending Timothy to them as a messenger, but he decided to send Epaphroditus, a trusted “brother, coworker and fellow soldier.
It’s an amazing example of God’s grace to see how he enabled Paul to shepherd his infant churches, even from prison. It would be mighty hard to invent Paul’s life story. -sdg-
