Keys to the Kingdom

I recently made a trip to Anderson, Missouri to attend a ladies’ meeting at the Banner Church. I had volunteered to help Charlene, her mother, and her aunt with the setup for the evening gathering. When we brought stuff into the Life Center, we must have left the outside double doors open too long. After working a while, someone said, “There’s a squirrel!” He scurried around for a few seconds and then dashed into an adjoining classroom. I swiftly closed the doors to the room in order to contain him while Charlene found and told her husband/pastor that a squirrel was running loose in the church. Dennis nonchalantly came downstairs and quickly formulated a simple plan. We would open the outside double doors, arm three of us with push brooms, and then open the classroom doors so the squirrel could easily exit the building.

Prior to opening the squirrel’s door, Charlene felt it was important to remind us that squirrels can run up your britches leg. Dennis opened the door and the squirrel made a run for it; but it was in the wrong direction. He headed straight for me. That squirrel went totally berserk, jumped over my broom and darted up the stairs, banged his head into the glass door and zoomed back down the stairs. Someone was yelling, “Get it, get it!” as I sprinted up the stairs and opened the glass door. That half-crazed squirrel ran around the tables at breakneck speed, darted back up the stairs and burst through the open door. You might think this is just a wild tale from Ray Stevens’ hit song, but I can prove it happened because every bit of it was recorded on the surveillance camera!

I come from a long line of laughing people on both sides of my family, so I have a natural inclination to see humor in things most people don’t notice. Whenever someone told my Mom a comical real-life story and got to the punch line, she’d cackle like a chicken laying an egg. Laughing is good for our health and God makes that clear in His Word. “A merry heart does good, like a medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones” (Proverbs 17:22 NKJV). A joyful heart will brighten and strengthen your day. The Bible has examples of people who laughed — even God laughs. “And Sarah said, ‘God has made me laugh, and all who hear will laugh with me’” (Genesis 21:6 NKJV). Abraham and Sarah named their son “Isaac” which means “He (God) Laughs.” Abraham fell on his face and laughed (see Genesis 17:17).

“We were filled with laughter, and we sang for joy” (Psalm 126:2 NLT). What’s on the inside shows on the outside. As kids, we sang: If you’re happy and you know it then your face will surely show it, if you’re happy and you know it clap your hands (or stomp your feet). I once heard a preacher say that some Christians look like they’ve been baptized in dill pickle juice. In the Old Testament, we find that there’s a time for laughing. “For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. A time to cry and a time to laugh…“ (Ecclesiastes 3:1,4 NLT). Believers should take our laughter medicine every day. Studies show that 30-second belly laughs are good for your immune system. Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is let loose and laugh.

My Mom used to say, “You might as well laugh as cry.” I’ve found that to be pretty good advice. I actually laugh and cry all at the same time when something is extremely funny.

The Key: Go ahead and laugh like a hyena or, at least, grin like an opossum.

Rural America has been fighting numerous megatrends that have caused us to shrink since 1941, but no event accelerated this decline more than the 2008 recession. It drained billions of dollars of wealth from our economy, government enacted massive new regulations, and a trillion dollar bailout of Wall Street blew a big hole in the Federal budget; all these events negatively impacted rural America disproportionately.

The genesis of the Great Recession of 2008 was a 1999 action by Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, to weaken mortgage qualification requirements. Congress and the President supported this move by this government-funded organization with the intent of making home ownership more accessible to lower income and minorities buyers; the sub-prime mortgage industry was born.

From 1999 to 2008, the number of these loans grew and standards were further relaxed to support more home ownership. The number of sub-prime loans increased substantially because banks could offer “teaser” rates that would later adjust and earn higher fees. Banks fell all over themselves to originate these highly profitable loans.

Mortgage insurance companies and rating agencies joined the party, by rubber-stamping the insurance application and assigning the rating demanded by the bank to ensure the loans were sold. The Collateralized Mortgage Obligation Bond (CMOs) made up of many of these questionable loans became big business, and investors flocked to purchase them; the lion’s share were purchased by Wall Street investment banks, who then leveraged them again through a new debt instrument called Collateral Debt Obligations (“CDOs”); this was like throwing gasoline on a fire.

The high volume of these mortgages to new homebuyers created a bull market for real estate and values skyrocketed. Everything seemed fine through 2006.

The end started when an increasing number of these unqualified borrowers began defaulting on their loans. Next, the adjustable rate mortgages with teaser rates started to adjust and the homeowner’s mortgage payments jumped dramatically, causing them to be unable to make the much higher payment. In 2008, late payments reached a crescendo, and defaults skyrocketed. As a result, home values dropped and the beginnings of a recession took root.

The final straw was the defaults on many of the CMOs and CDOs owned by Wall Street investment banks, creating the need for Congress to ride to the rescue to head off a much larger crisis; more rural money shipped to big businesses.

What was at the root of this disaster? There was plenty of greed and dishonesty that intensified the crisis, but the heart of the problem was the Federal government inserting themselves in the housing market and creating a vehicle by which banks and mortgage companies could make money on loans they would not normally approve. Ultimately, no one benefitted, especially low-income families and minorities, and we all paid the price.

The best thing Washington, D.C. can do for rural America is to quit inserting themselves into the American way of business and life. I believe that given a choice on a level playing field, Americans will prefer the life offered by small town America and Bourbon County. I know I do.

If you want to know more about this topic, I recommend you watch the movie, The Big Short, released in 2015. It funny, entertaining, star-studded and informative; It does contain a significant amount of profanity.