Alarm!

 Almost four years ago, I wrote about the time I spent at the car dealer having the recall for my airbags dealt with. Over the course of those four years, there have been three recalls for my airbags, and I have had the driver side replaced once and the passenger side twice. Then, recently, my Secondary Restraint System (SRS) Warning Light came on. The manual told me to take my car in for service as soon as possible, since there may be a critical fault in a safety system.

Of course, this was two weeks before Christmas, the busiest season of the year for anyone in the grocery business--especially in produce--and for anyone involved in putting together music for church services. Both apply to me. Every waking moment I was not at work at Kroger, I was building the music videos for our church Christmas service, since all the music, and the children's pageant, were to be virtual this year. Fortunately, I was not involved in a car crash, and this week I finally took the car in to be looked at.

Another hour at the dealer, waiting to hear the prognosis, during which I read chapter three of Walter Brueggeman's Biblical Perspectives on Evangelism--but that's a story for a different blog. Finally a nice man came out and told me that the warning was caused by a code in the computer, and the prescribed action was to clear the code and drive around for a while. If the light does not come back on, then everything is hunky dory. They had done that, and everything was, indeed, hunky dory and there was no charge. Yay!

Meanwhile, two customers this week have commented that it was vital that "we" took the senate--presumably in the run-off election in Georgia which happened yesterday. As each continued to speak, it became clear that "we" in this case meant Republicans. The second customer explained, "I am not a socialist!" As I write, it looks like the Democrats probably will take both Georgia Senate seats, and I suspect that Socialism Restraint System (SRS) Warning Lights are coming on across much of America. 

I propose that the corrective action for this SRS warning light should be the same as it was for the SRS warning light in my car. Let's "clear the code," and drive the country around for a while to see if the light comes back on. By clear the code, in this case, I mean take a break from the news sources which exist mainly to stoke our fears. Try, for a month, not watching Fox News (or OAN or Newsmax). Perhaps try watching one of broadcast networks' evening news programs. And stay away from Facebook and Twitter, which have carefully arranged your news feed to include all the posts that will poke at your outrage, since those are the posts that get an instant reaction from you. Then, around, say, February 20th, check back and see if we have become a socialist state (whatever that means--because nobody I know is actually referring to true Socialism). Check your bedside table to see if your Bible and gun are still there. Peek outside to see if the United Nations has declared martial law in your city. I think you will find that everything is actually still hunky dory and that the United States will continue to be a safe country.