Saturday, January 4, 2020

Facing Our Opioid Crisis


The current Kentucky Opioid Crisis has local Media on edge. They are reporting these days on individuals like M. B. who graduated from the local high school in 2011. This individual was an active girl scout. She was active in local academic affairs. She was, devout in her church and an active church member until "the pressures of life took over. She began to question herself … She began socializing with different people She lost her faith and lost her relationship with the church” her mother suggested.

“This young lady began to self-medicate to deal with mental and emotional pain. The self-medicating became an addiction, reprogramming her brain to such an extent she could no longer control it.

"She wanted to be better for herself,” her mother reported, “But this demon was a formidable adversary that she could not overcome” and she died in the local hospital just before her 26th birthday, as reported by the local newspaper.

This girl was survived by her son. She was someone’s daughter, sister, cousin, friend and her baby’s mothers. Her departure left family and friends with holidays, birthdays, and special occasions forever different.
            
Her mother continues to ponder why her daughter left her stage of life so soon; she was but 25 years old.”

As reported in the local newspaper, this young woman now takes her place as  a memory for a Rally4Recovery as local citizens rally to save one more life, re-unite one more family, to help one more person break that cycle of addiction.

The Prophet Isaiah understood this crisis of which we are all apart. He understood our need to turn back from our religiosity, our political structures and all such panaceas. He announced that we must once more establish our days acceptably as unto the Lord that issued this challenge:

"Is not this the fast that I choose to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and hide not yourself from your own flesh?

Only "Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you, and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, Here I am. . .” (58;5-) RSV).

It is obvious to me that we have some repairs to make in the breaches of our 2020 social structures. Our political solutions and our humanistic philosophies are no longer adequate. It is no longer sufficient for us to define ourselves as Republi-cans or Democrats, Independents, Libertarians, or Socialists; we are flooded with disasters of genocide, struggles for power, and calamities of faith.

To avoid the disasters of humanity we must once again turn to the ONE GREAT I AM, WHO IS TODAY AND WILL BE TOMORROW and remember once more from  where true healing comes.            

We must once more point to the Lord God of all humanity, who says, I the Lord love justice, I hate robbery and wrong; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them” (61:8-9) 

Who today has the courage to walk within hearing distance and hear this word of the Lord and follow the example of Isaiah when he said, "Here am I, Lord; send me?"

I am ... walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com

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