Proverbs 17

Verse 1: Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting with strife.

First time I read this verse I thought about a much more personal "house". Around a year ago I read it with the thought of a "church home" in mind.
After last night that verse speaks to me in a much deeper, all-encompassing way. You see, our house is America and we have been feasting with strife for decades now. Literally for years we have been living at a standard of living based on credit lines. starting in the 1970s our manufacturing base began to shrink to the point where today it looks like the top worn by our Baby Huey of an economy. Desperately trying to cover our ever-bulging mid section of overindulgence.
I have been reading Thomas Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia" and I can't help but wonder how his vision for America would have worked out. A society of farm families and small communities with the Federal Government providing only the most basic of civil needs. That may be a dry crust of bread but it beats the tar out of the feast before us now.
Our mortgage system is toast...kind of. See, all of these cheap track homes that have exploded onto the sceen like vinyl shanties were sold to people using "creative financing" which means they can't afford them but the banks are going to give 'em the keys anyway.
This led to those same people loosing the homes they couldn't afford anyway. This is what happened to us a few years ago. So, few are building today and the mortgage companies are flaking out because they have goten a lot of houses back and have no where to selll them.
Add to that the fact that we make very little in way of products in this country today and you can see we have a problem. Our economy has no base...none. This gets worse folks. I am a sales rep in the building industry and I can tell you it's going to get worse. This is the house we live in.
Throw in the strife in our collective house now. Watch political talking heads. The Left or Right, Democrats or Republicans...doesn't matter. They are both full of the same hateful rhetoric. But the talk stirrs up hate for one another...it brings strife. It also serves as a distraction. Our government started doing this with the Irish and the, black slaves some 300 years ago...divide and conquer.
I say we all sit down over a crust of bread and a cup of water.

Gods Speed,Greg