Easter and the Automotive Companies

Rejoice and be glad! That is the Easter tiding we are to live by not only during the 50 days of Easter but all our lives. Good advice, but not always easy to do. In fact it is one of the hardest things to do.

I live in Michigan, I work in the auto industry, I am part of the motor city, and I must say proud of it! But as you can imagine with a 12% unemployment rate, the Detroit Three under the gun from the Fed’s (well 2 of the 3, the third, Ford Motor Company limping along with out loans) and just a basic gloom and doom out look felt by most, it is hard to Rejoice and be glad!

The affects of the automotive companies on Michigan are tremendous, as the old saying goes, GM gets a cold, Michigan gets the flu, or something like that, the basic idea is, Michigan’s life depends on cars. Good bad or indifferent, don’t really matter on what side of the argument you are, Michigan is in a lot of hurt at the moment,

Sure we did a lot of this to ourselves, the UAW and the Auto companies living off the fat, and now we all have to pay the price. So as I said it’s hard to Rejoice and be glad!

But that’s the point of it all isn’t it, if it was easy what would the point be? What rejoicing would there be if nothing was ever painful? The automotive companies are a perfect example of this. In the good ol’ days Ford, GM and Chrysler did as they pleased, they could they were the only players, we didn’t have the trans-plant companies here yet. That is until the 80’s. But the Big Three (as they were called back than) still played the game as if they were the only teams on the field. So poor quality and lack of imagination was the main stay. Now we are playing catch-up, and it’s not been easy. But when we make it through all this mess, we will be able to Rejoice and be glad, because we will have something to celebrate. We will have suffered our own passion and died on the cross of competition and are now resurrected.

Easter is a time of rebirth, a time to rediscover who we are and why we are. Jesus died on the cross for us, he was beaten and mocked, he stood in silence as he was accused and took the hits with our uttering a word. Maybe that’s what our automotive companies need to do. Jesus went to be judged by Pontius Pilate, he was accused of crimes he did not commit and condemned to death for the sins of others. In away the US government is the Pontius Pilate of our times, corrupt to the core, yet sitting in judgment of others. Now the automotive industry is not with out sin, we have placed upon ourselves a heavy yoke from years of  corruption and living high off the hog, but times have changed.

We are no were near our resurrection here in the State of Michigan, the automotive companies still have a long way to go, but we seem to be on the path of purification, as we are still standing before our own Pilate, the Obama administration. We will come out of this, and we will rejoice and be glad, but until than please pray for us, Michigan needs your prayers as we struggle to our Calvary. The cross we bear is the cross we made, the crucifixion is of our own design and the resurrection is still to come, and yes, it will come.

Easter in the Motor City is alive and well, and one day we will Rejoice and be glad when we have our own resurrection, when one day the Detroit Three are once again something to be proud of.

As for the Lords resurrection, we are a faithful state, and we celebrate the passion death and resurrection of our Lord, Jesus the Christ with reverence and yes we are Rejoicing and we are Glad and we look to the Lord for compassion on our brothers and sisters who have lost there jobs due to the down turn of the Detroit Three.

It may be hard at times to see the positive, to feel the joy, but Detroit is know for is bounce, and bounce we will.

Paul