One More Day Alive

A couple of years ago, when all the economic madness thrust so many into the long haul of tough times that is still continuing today, I wrote a column about the value of faith and hope, and how faith was ultimately more important in the long run.

With so many of us still facing so much of the same adversity, I thought it might be a good time to remind ourselves of those two ideas and just how they might help us through these tough times.

But now rather than simply reflecting on why faith is so much more important, I thought the time was right to do a little bragging for all of you out there about how much faith you have all had through the last few years, and how powerful that faith was when it came to helping you and the rest of America survive — long after hope went into short supply.

Because while hope for better times might make it easier to keep going, it is only through faith that we can find happiness. It is only through faith that we can realize the inherent value of our lives regardless of our fortune or our misfortune.

While foreclosures are still out of control, oil and gas prices are through the roof, and of course the papers are still filled with stories of people struggling to make ends meet, faith in our families and our nation has stayed strong. And that has kept us all going, millions from coast to coast who have continued to do the right thing: to work hard at their jobs, or continue to work hard finding a job, despite how difficult it has made our lives.

While we have watched some banks and greedy corporations break the law and mismanage funds, millions of everyday Americans have continued to respect each other and the rule of law in America; there has not been a rise in crime and misbehavior; in fact there has been a decrease.

Even as our media continues to irresponsibly depress us on a daily basis with portrayals of a wayward world of war and madness void of any purpose, millions have continued to pray and worship the Lord in America; there has not been a drop in churchgoing; in fact there has been a rise!

All of that and more should not only give all of us something to cling to in the storm, it should also make us proud. It should make us realize our strength and the value of our connection to something stronger and greater than ourselves is unbreakable in America.

It should make us all realize that there is something tangibly great about this nation that goes well beyond money, prosperity, looking good, feeling good or being number one.

Though one might argue that some have given up hope that things will get better soon in this nation, we have kept our faith that it is a nation worth trying to make better.

Through faith, we realize our ultimate purpose to live for God’s love regardless of what we encounter in this world. As I said way back when all this started, we will keep going because we know that every day, every hour, every second that we spend helping spread God’s love through our own compassion, our understanding and our endurance gets all of us one step closer to making the Lord’s Prayer a reality — “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.”

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What do all predictors of doom have in common? Answer: they are usually wrong. And they get a whole lot of attention by convincing a whole lot of innocent bystanders something is about to bring about the end of the world as we know it.

A few months back on May 21, one of those crazy, but extremely rich and crafty doomsayers named Harold Camping predicted Judgment Day. He claimed God revealed this date to him, even though the Bible clearly tells us no one will know when this day will come.

In fact that’s the whole point – we don’t know because we don’t need to know. Anymore than we need to know the nature of heaven or what God looks like. These are things not for us, but for God to worry about.

Camping was wrong. And most doomsayers usually are. But we don’t know they are wrong until God has proven them wrong with a good dose of reality. In the meantime they make a whole lot people very unhappy and cause some very bad things to happen.

Camping’s stunt convinced a number of vulnerable people to sell all their belongings, or to quit their jobs, or to uproot their families and bring on much needless pain, suffering and worry, as opposed to simply living a good life and leaving the rest to God.

Reflecting upon this man’s irresponsible, panic-causing actions, I couldn’t help but think of a few other doomsayer movements.

There was that group of people back in the 1970s who said that if we continued to have children the world would come to an end by the year 2000. They were wrong, but they were partially responsible for a skyrocketing rise in abortions in the world, not to mention a whole lot of childless couples who felt too scared to bring more children into the world.

Then there were those who said the Soviet Union and the United States would blow each other to smithereens. That never happened because both sides were filled with people who not only didn’t want that to happen, but were doing everything possible to prevent it. But it did terrify my generation for most of our youth causing hellish nightmares and undue stress.

Finally our latest and greatest doomsayers are hell bent on convincing us man is an evil nuisance whose presence is destroying the planet, and that we need to turn our world upside down to fix it, or else we will all melt away.

Yet mounting evidence is proving the whole temperature cycle of this planet is much more complex and out of our control than we could ever imagine. Furthermore, esteemed British scientists at Rothamsted, the United Kingdom’s largest agricultural research center, have recently suggested extra carbon dioxide in the air from global warming could dramatically increase crop yields and reduce water consumption by about 50 percent or more by 2050, feeding and saving the lives of millions of starving people across the world. God works in mysterious ways.

Clearly, we pollute as we live. But we also clean up. There is plenty we can do to improve on that for the sake of the human beings it will help. But we don’t need to stop all of our industry, quit our jobs and jump out a window because it will be better for the earth if we are not around.

We are commanded to live meaningful, loving lives by obeying God’s commandments, and then to trust in the Lord. Whether that means preparing for Judgment Day by respecting God, our families and friends, or responsible natural family planning, or not waging war against our fellow man needlessly, or preparing a better and cleaner world for our children by not selfishly or haphazardly polluting it, there are always ways to live better and to be better servants of our Lord.

Let’s concentrate on that, and let God worry about the end of the world.

What do all predictors of doom have in common? Answer: they are usually wrong. And they get a whole lot of attention by convincing a whole lot of innocent bystanders something is about to bring about the end of the world as we know it.

A few months back on May 21, one of those crazy, but extremely rich and crafty doomsayers named Harold Camping predicted Judgment Day. He claimed God revealed this date to him, even though the Bible clearly tells us no one will know when this day will come.

In fact that’s the whole point – we don’t know because we don’t need to know. Anymore than we need to know the nature of heaven or what God looks like. These are things not for us, but for God to worry about.

Camping was wrong. And most doomsayers usually are. But we don’t know they are wrong until God has proven them wrong with a good dose of reality. In the meantime they make a whole lot people very unhappy and cause some very bad things to happen.

Camping’s stunt convinced a number of vulnerable people to sell all their belongings, or to quit their jobs, or to uproot their families and bring on much needless pain, suffering and worry, as opposed to simply living a good life and leaving the rest to God.

Reflecting upon this man’s irresponsible, panic-causing actions, I couldn’t help but think of a few other doomsayer movements.

There was that group of people back in the 1970s who said that if we continued to have children the world would come to an end by the year 2000. They were wrong, but they were partially responsible for a skyrocketing rise in abortions in the world, not to mention a whole lot of childless couples who felt too scared to bring more children into the world.

Then there were those who said the Soviet Union and the United States would blow each other to smithereens. That never happened because both sides were filled with people who not only didn’t want that to happen, but were doing everything possible to prevent it. But it did terrify my generation for most of our youth causing hellish nightmares and undue stress.

Finally our latest and greatest doomsayers are hell bent on convincing us man is an evil nuisance whose presence is destroying the planet, and that we need to turn our world upside down to fix it, or else we will all melt away.

Yet mounting evidence is proving the whole temperature cycle of this planet is much more complex and out of our control than we could ever imagine. Furthermore, esteemed British scientists at Rothamsted, the United Kingdom’s largest agricultural research center, have recently suggested extra carbon dioxide in the air from global warming could dramatically increase crop yields and reduce water consumption by about 50 percent or more by 2050, feeding and saving the lives of millions of starving people across the world. God works in mysterious ways.

Clearly, we pollute as we live. But we also clean up. There is plenty we can do to improve on that for the sake of the human beings it will help. But we don’t need to stop all of our industry, quit our jobs and jump out a window because it will be better for the earth if we are not around.

We are commanded to live meaningful, loving lives by obeying God’s commandments, and then to trust in the Lord. Whether that means preparing for Judgment Day by respecting God, our families and friends, or responsible natural family planning, or not waging war against our fellow man needlessly, or preparing a better and cleaner world for our children by not selfishly or haphazardly polluting it, there are always ways to live better and to be better servants of our Lord.

Let’s concentrate on that, and let God worry about the end of the world.

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Hope vs. Faith

Hope: Expectations for the future

Faith: Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. Belief in a set of principles

“Don’t lose hope,” said the waitress to one of the regulars at a little cafe I frequent. The patron had just poured her heart out to the waitress about losing her job.  The property management company she worked for lost their shirt in the real estate crisis, and the thirty-something single mother of two got laid off. “Keep the faith,” I muttered as she left the cafe. She smiled and thanked me for my concern.

But can such platitudes offer any meaningful comfort or direction when we are at the end of our rope?

Unemployment is still in the stratosphere. Most economists say we had better get used to that because we won’t see that number coming down for years.

Foreclosures are still out of control and may see another rise. Experts say the worst of this is behind us – but that really doesn’t make anyone who has been foreclosed upon feel any better.

Oil and gas prices are through the roof.

Everywhere you look nowadays the papers are filled with stories of people struggling to make ends meet.

So what do we all do about it? Don’t lose hope and keep the faith? But what does that actually mean?

Well maybe hope –looking forward to better times to come – makes it easier to keep going. Psychologists and common sense tell us we can endure anything for a limited time, as long as the end is in site, and we know that better times lie ahead.

But how do we know that good times lie ahead – and how do we deal with the ones we got.

That’s where faith comes in.

Maybe hope without faith is missing the point of our lives – that there is a great value to finding some solace in the situations we are in – even the worst of them. 

If you believe in what you are doing and why you are doing it, you can endure more than you ever imagined.

But faith can help us find happiness within the experiences of our ordeals themselves and how we deal with them?  Because tough times make us realize the value of our lives can’t all be measured, understood or based on our prosperity, our fortune, misfortune, or end result at all.

Our value is wrapped up in the way we live, the people, the principles and the God we live for. And in turn those are the reasons to endure the toughest times life can offer – to keep going – for all those principles and people that we love.

And we will get through.  But when we do, we will have much more than our rediscovered prosperity?  We will have the knowledge and know-how it took us to get there.  We will have the confidence in our ability to weather tough times. Most importantly, we will know better what we value, and who.

We will all keep working hard.  Because that’s what Americans do. In fact, when the chips are down, you can’t beat our spirit, our ingenuity and our faith in each other, in ourselves, and in our God to see us through.

We keep going because we know that every day, every hour, every second that we spend helping spread God’s love through our own compassion, our understanding and our endurance gets all of us one step closer to making the Lord’s Prayer a reality – “Thy will be done – on earth as it is in Heaven.”

And I HOPE none of you give up on that.

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