A Simpler Time

A famous childhood actress has died.
Known for her dimples and curly hair, she was loved by all.
She single-handedly turned a bankrupt studio around with her movies.
Even at the age of five, she was the actress everyone wanted to see.

Her movies made you happy.
Life, for the time you watched her films, was a song and dance.
She brought smiles and laughter to our country during hard times.

When the spirit of the people is lower than at any other time during this Depression, it is a splendid thing that for just 15 cents, an American can go to a movie and look at the smiling face of a baby and forget his troubles, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said.

Every little girl wanted to be like Shirley Temple.
I wanted to dance like her.
I often danced on my grandmother’s stairs, trying desperately to tap my way up and down.
My grandmother lived in a row home; her neighbors did not appreciate the tapping.

I wanted cleats for my dress shoes, since I wasn’t allowed to have real tap shoes.
I remember the day my mother removed them.
Scuff marks on the kitchen floor and slipping on any wet surface convinced her.
So I tried to tap dance in my sneakers, which was not the same without the sound.

It was a gentler time.
It was a time of innocence.
It was a time when children were protected.

Many think that time is lost forever.
It may seem so, more often than not.
It is not lost, but it is asleep.
It is up to us to revive it!

What if we refuse to go to a movie if it offends simple standards of decency?
What if we turned off our TV and spent time talking to each other or reading?
What if we didn’t watch award shows that cross the line during prime time viewing?

What if we began by taking simple steps?

What if we stood up and offered our seat when an elderly person entered a room?
What if we held the door for a woman starting with our wives, our mothers, and sisters?
What if we walked away from tasteless stories and crude language?

What if we simply began by doing something small?

Do not rebuke and older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity. (1 Timothy 5:2)

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. (Colossians 3:5-8)

Rise in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God.
I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:32)

Chivalry is not dead.
Good manners are still important.
Purity and modesty are virtuous.

Just begin!

I’ve heard people say, the pendulum has to swing back.
Whatever people’s appetites are, that is what Hollywood is going to feed.
It’s time to retrain our appetites!

Begin by saying NO!
Say NO with your pocketbook.
Say NO with your patronage.
Say NO with a letter or phone call.

Say NO and mean it!
Wean away from the need to be satiated and turn towards the need to be filled.
There is a difference.

Be careful then, how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead be filled with the Spirit. (Ephesians 5:15-18)

Don’t be satiated with pleasures upon pleasures that are empty and fleeting.
Be filled with the Spirit, permanently sealed, saved, justified.
Be sanctified each day as you become more like Jesus.

We can go forward by going back to basics.
Basics as spelled out in God’s Word.
Don’t you long for the sweetness and the innocence of a simpler time?

Our children deserve our protection.
Protection from the catapult that tries to launch them into adulthood much too soon.

A song and dance during our country’s worst Depression.
A song and dance during our country’s worst moral decline.
Training our appetites for sweetness and innocence.
Filled with the Spirit, not satiated with empty pleasures.

Let’s begin!