Sin in Asheville


This morning I was reviewing the local newspaper web ledger of "Top Stories" to see if the accident that we saw yesterday--where an SUV of a Florida family wiping out on an icy road up in the mountains--was detailed. Everyone was fine physically but the the husband was getting a tongue-lashing by the wife who apparently was saying "I am through with you" or something to that effect while we were trying to assist getting the car unstuck. All the while, the kids are looking on like kids do when they are caught in a mortifying familial mess not of their doing. Humiliated, wanting to hide under the car seats.

I was going to blog about how we often truly don't know about dangers until we experience them. Florida drivers on icy roads...we can talk until we are blue in the face about the risk and it probably won't be grasped until your car is in a ditch and your wife is ragging at you. We Pennsylvanians are wiser, having wiped out many times before.

Here in bucolic Asheville, I thought the car accident might be news. Nothing doing...it is more than just Aunt Bessie's cow getting loose. We are talking some serious sin in A-Ville. At our loft in downtown, sirens have been an omnipresent sound throughout the week. Seven out of the Top Stories above are profiles in the wickedness of mans' heart. Now, I know the news tends to be negative, because "If it bleeds, it leads." Much of what is here in Asheville is quite beautiful and wonderful. But why is it that good is often perceived as boring and uninteresting? Our empty hearts crave pathology as readers...we like crime, and that shows us to be sinful, as well as the criminals. We lick at licentiousness and grovel in gore.

It is a sad world--from car accidents, marital conflict, sex offenders, Chief's of Police suspended, murder, and mayhem. But how much sadder if we had all of the sin but no Savior? Joy to the World, the Lord has come. "No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow, Far as the curse is found, Far as the curse is found, Far as, far as, the curse is found."

Amen, from Asheville.
  

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