TSA

‘TSA’ – Tell Someone About … i.e. … If You See Something Say Something. This message is prominently posted throughout today’s airports and transportation terminals . . . a gloomy but necessary warning reflecting the state of the tenuous world we live in.

Long before 9/11’s tragedy and the TSA’s formation it initiated, If You See Something Say Something existed. In ‘Days of Yore’, just like now, we’d ‘TSA’ about:

• Our children – first step, tooth, athletic skills, academic awards, graduation, family, etc.
• Ourselves – jobs, accomplishments, family, vacations, etc.
• Sports & Automobiles – albeit, fewer teams and fewer models fueled the passion.
And we’d do it all via ‘old fashioned’ technology . . . face-to-face vs. Facetime . . . snail-mail vs. e-mail . . . telegram vs. Instagram . . . phoning vs. texting. Hold on now . . . I’m not just another ‘ole duffer’ dissing technology (well I am an ‘ole duffer’). Tech has undeniably contributed much to benefit our world. However, somewhere along the way we’ve become a depersonalized society necessitating If You See Something Say Something signage.

Some of the topics we ‘TSA’ about today have since adopted a much more confrontational venue:

• Politics – the decision is no longer which candidates are the best among several favorable choices, rather which are the ‘best’ among a bickering field of less than ideal choices.
• Situation ethics and individual rights now influence decisions and legislation more than the common good standards of basic morality.
• National division is prevailing over the unity patriotism promotes.

There’s another ‘TSA’ message that has existed for 2,000 years which has sadly diminished significantly. It’s not directly about our children, ourselves, politics, sports and automobiles, basic morality or patriotism . . . but its message is the most important. This anonymous poem poignantly expresses it:

“My friend, I stand in judgment now,
And feel that you’re to blame somehow.
On earth I walked with you by day,
And never did you show the way.
You knew the Savior in truth and glory,
But never did you tell the story.
My knowledge then was very dim,
You could have led me safe to Him.
Though we lived together here on earth,
You never told me of the second birth.
And now I stand before eternal Hell,
Because of Heaven’s glory you did not tell.”
(Anon)

Christians, myself included, in deference to ‘offending’ someone, are often hesitant to Tell Someone About Jesus, the Savior and Creator of it all . . . and in doing so we commit the greatest of all offenses.