Can Zombies Fly Planes?

When i was a kid, i thought i either wanted to be a fighter pilot or a US Navy SEAL.  While most of my friends could quote sports statistics, i could tell you the thrust-to-weight ratio of an F-18's GE404 engines, or the muzzle velocity of an HK MP-5 submachine gun.  And while i never pursued either of those courses of action, i have been seeing a debate in our culture that brings much of that same military imagery into sharp relief as a parallel metaphor.  Here's what i mean:

"Air Power vs. Ground Power" - It's ironic to me that when aircraft were first developed, everyone wrote off their military significance as trivial.  Confining them to reconnaissance and basic "anti-personnel" functions in WWI (literally a pilot of a bi-plane dropping a hand held bomb over the side as he flew low over a battle), most people never envisioned the awesome firepower of the fleets of B-17's that would dot the sky in WWII, or the fact that contemporary airpower is a "given" nowadays in that "whoever controlls the skies, controlls the war".   

But despite falling in love with our own birds of prey, any military strategist will tell you that while airpower is critical, you can't really "win" a war without eventually sending in ground forces.  You can soften,

 bludgeon or blast as many hard targets as you can see from the air, but eventually, the "real" battle happens person to person, room to room, inch by inch, acre by acre with men and women who are deployed in cavalry, infantry and support units in the mud, sweat and blood of even the most modern of warfare scenarios.  You can significantly help or cripple your ability to win a war through the use of airpower, but without ground forces, you'll never load the final tipping point to real victory.

I see the current debates raging about our government in much the same way.  People seem to be tearing themselves apart about our elections, the trajectory of our country, and its impact on our day to day lives.  I get that.  I get that our national leadership has HUGE play with where we go as a nation, and so don't think i'm being dismissive of that in what i say next.

But here's the reality that i see every day as we engage the most marginalized people in our community, or even in the ends of the earth in India for that matter.  Are you ready?  Here it is:

"No one's life is ultimately transformed by the government.  It's transformed by individual men and women who reach into the worlds of the lost and hurting and stand with them against whatever is preventing them from finding wholeness, freedom and the kind of Life that Jesus really intended for them."  I guess it's back to Air Power vs. Ground Power for me.  The Government is "Air Power".  It can leverage huge amounts of collective "firepower" against big problems identified in our culture, and it can either "hit them" or "miss them" with a variety of positive or ill effects.  But as a "Commander" of Ground Forces for the Kingdom here in a local church setting, i know that the real battle is ultimately not going to be won through that kind of Power.  Rather, it's going to be won by people like you and me working every day to gain inch by inch, home by home, person by person, family by family, life by life.

Once again, i know that there are smart zombies who fly planes (i.e. Christ followers who work in government), and God knows that we need them there.   But for me and my life, i'm going to stick to the ground. From my perspective, that's where the action seems the most intense, the change most possible and the results most visible for the Kingdom.  Charge!