The Brussels Post, 1976-04-28, Page 2A man tacked up a sign on his front door:
"The people in this house are Buddists
They speak only a Tibetan dialect
They have very bad tempers."
If y ou think this sign is intended to drive
away all door-to-door sales people -- the
vacuum cleaner men and the Avon calling
ladies -- you're wrong.
The man made it up for anoth er kind of
door knocker--the person who comes around
to your door and asks, "Brother, are you
saved?"
Several recent religious magazine articles
describe how you can shut the door and save
face arid still keep the faith.
Those religious salespeople have always
made me edgy. I never could think up a good
One li ner in reply. Imagine! A total stranger
blitzing me with such a question,
Now if he'd start out by asking how I am --
physically, and that is--or if he carried on
about the weather for a few minutes, that
would be okay. I'd expect something like that.
But no. It's am I saved? It's cutting the
jugular without any previous blood letting.
I'm just not prepared for this most personal
and intimate and soul rendering. question.
These magazine articles m ake some
suggestions -- real wham bangers to start your ,
own offensive. Why not reply with something
real. insulting. "Are y On educated?"
Or you could say, "I don't like being
propositioned." Or try something real silly:
Conversation stoppers such as "What's pi R
squared?" or "Why does the Bible say the
hare chew's the cud?" or "Who was Cain's
wife' ''
Arid if you have a little time On your hands
you cOuld intimidate them with a little
education of yotir own. Ask them what ancient
Bible text they're using. Vaticants,•
Sinaiticus, Alexandrihus Or Bazae? You rtniSt
insist on reliable texts,
And if that doesn't throw them in disarray,
then you could memorize the Bishop of
Durham's answer:
"Am I saved? Well that depends. Whether
you mean in the past tense, the present
tense or the future tense. If you mean 'Did
Christ die' for me?' -- undoubtedly; if you
mean, 'Are my feet firmly set upon the
highway of salvation?' -- I trust so; but if
you mean 'Am I safe home in the blest king-
dom meek of joy and love?' -- certainly
not."
But I don't know. Does any of it work? Does
any one word--or words--satisfy? Dots
anything work short of letting them know I like
to think of myself as Christian, but not their
variety. Being born again doesn't have to
mean some electrifying experience where I
can pinpoint time and date.
I can't remember my physical birth. Why
press a spiritual timetable on me? I don't get
my jollies out of remembering my birth -
spiritual or otherwise. It's what I do along the
counts.
But
counts. It's what believe in that
But no matter. I've learned to shut the door
pretty fast on my callers. Without the aid of all
those helpful magazine remarks. Forget
about the bright remark and fighting
invective.
It's sad--real sad-when one of my
deorknockers can say the local pastor could
have A packed church every SOnday. The
pastor -could fill tip h is entire sanctuary if
only he were saved, born Again.
It's so sad and presUrriptuotis loo
God's gift of salvation as sortie sort
promissory note that I can get, payable
tlemand.
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by Karl Schuessier
Are you saved?
Fine fishing - iast week !
11111111111111111111111$ 1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 1976
BRUSSELS
ONTARIO
Serving Brussels and the surrounding community.
Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario
by McLean Bros. Publishers, Limited,
Evelyn Kennedy - Editor Dave Robb - Advertising
Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and
r-Th Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association
ABC
+CNA
Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $6.00 a year. Others
$8.00 a year, Single Copies 15 cents each.
1.1141.1111110111.1.11111111111111111111111101111111111611111
107;
Brussels Post
Farm land
and its costs
Huron are MPP's Murray Gaunt and Jack Riddell
made the Toronto Globe and Mail on Monday. In a
column opposite the editorial page they were
described as being more than a little wary about cries
from city people that farm land should be preserved
at any price.
Of course they are wary. Most people want farm
land preserved but they don't want to pay the price;
they want farmers to pay it. Our two local provincial
members no doubt don't think it's fair for farmers to
bear all the risks of producing food that all of us eat.
The, drop in the' amount of land in agriculture in
Ontario is of concern to all of us. We want farm land
to stay in farming but we expect farmers to pay for
the freeze.
It would be less risky and more profitable for all
farmers to sell their farm land for a subdivision or a
shopping centre. In most of Huron County that's
impossible and most of us agree with our forward
looking county council's policy of keeping agri-
cultural land in production.
Farmers are as concerned as anyone else that good
land be used to produce food. But they are telling the
rest of us that farming good land should be lust as
profitable as "paving it over for a shopping centre or
cutting it up into house lots.
Right now it isn't, not by far. A society that is
willing to pay inflated prices for house lots and for
luxury goods but balks at food prices which give
farmers a fair return is in trouble.
Farmers' trouble is that they have to absorb costs
over which they have no control ... from bills for an
ailing cow to buying and planting seed twice after a
prolonged frost destroys the first planting. All their
costs, including the price they have to pay to buy
more land, are going up.
It's only logical that a society that says farmers
have to absorb these costs on their own can't turn
around and tell farmers what to do with their land
...land that has been in effect a farmer's pension
plan. But that's what we're doing.
And it's possible that we'll face a rebellion from
farmers who'll tell us that when agriculture products
bring a decent return, when food prices are high
enough, farm land won't be taken out of production
... there'll be too much money in it.
All of us who say we want farm land preserved on
the one hand and balk at high food prices on the
Other are hypocrites.
"Let's discust pkocra.stination some other time."