Nov 4th, 2020: Foolishness of Idolatry

 

I am writing this on the evening of the election day. I cannot comment much about it because it is too close to call at this moment. So I am going to share with you a number I came across about another news today, and it makes me wonder (see the above picture).

Many of the victims of various riots this summers are small business folks. Their businesses were hurt economically by the shutdown due to Covid-19. Then many of them saw their property damaged by the rioters later on. My parents used to be one of them, and I know how hard they had to work so they can be financially independent and don't have to rely on hand out.

This number tells us what is really wrong with our society.  We witness the kind of misplaced priorities and the lack of appreciation for the strong backbone of our economic engine, small businesses. It tells us how out of touch some celebrities have become, and they have failed to understand that without these small businesses, America is not what it is.

Why our culture has allowed itself to engage in such a form of idolatry, celebrities worship? Can we be that lost so that we would let these folks tell us what is worthy and grant us a meaningful path to personal understanding of salvation? Somehow we have bestowed on them the status that they either should not have or don't deserve.

Personally, I am more concerned about what homeless folks don't have to wear on a cold winter night than what a celebrity wears while attending the Oscars. I have more appreciation for folks who work day and night to save lives than some of these celebrities who directly and indirectly make life challenging for many other people because of their perceived self-importance.

Of course, not all celebrities are like that. Some are more self-aware than others and understand that they have a specific job to do. It is called performing. Here are a few quotes:

"Acting is just a way of making a living, the family is life." 

"The chances you take, the people you meet, the people you love, the faith you have. That's what's going to define you.
(Denzel Washington)

So it is time to support your local small businesses. Be their clients even though we might have to pay a little bit more.

Isaiah 44: 9
"Those who fashion a graven image are all of them futile, and their precious things are of no profit; even their own witnesses fail to see or know, so that they will be put to shame."


 

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