What the hell...

Over the past few hours, I have been watching CNN as they covered the voting of the Bail Out Bill. The bill failed by just a few votes. According to Yahoo News, "Several Republican aides said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had torpedoed any spirit of bipartisanship that surrounded the bill with her scathing speech near the close of the debate that blamed Bush's policies for the economic turmoil."

Oh my God! Bush's policies have ruined the economy. We are in a war that is costing us 10 billion dollars a month. Bush created loop holes allowing companies to take tax breaks and send US jobs over seas. Bush did nothing, more importantly Republicans did nothing to stop the out of control banking industry from lending bad loans. We are so in debt as a nation that nobody trusts our dollar or our economy. Democrats just took control over congress this past year. Republicans however were in power much longer than the Democates and therefore the Republicans have ruined the economy. Republicans voted for the war, voted for the extreme spending, voted and allowed the out of control tax loop holes. Republicans have lost their power and now they are going to find any opportunity to now hurt those who took away their power.

Frankly, anyone who voted no this bill did it for two reasons: 1.) They did it out political move in an effort to hold their seat. 2.) They are greedy and just want to make sure they are making a buck and that their business buddies are able to make a buck. Either way, the people that lose are the American people. President Bush when he leaves office will go back to his ranch and live high on the hog. Members of congress will have their nice homes that they can go home to. Many Americans though are losing their homes, jobs, and their way of life. God be with our nation.

Something to think about...

Is it okay to go through life expecting and anticipating that everything we have plan, everything that we work so hard for would just fall apart? Is it healthy to keep our expectations low and expect everyone to stab us in the back? Should we trust nobody and confide nothing to our friends, family members, or coworkers in fear that they will use this information to hurt us?

I ask these questions as I sit in a workshop dealing with appropriate sexual relationships. I wonder what happened in our society where we no longer have a sense of appropriate boundaries. Talking to two fellow students they said, if they were walking back alone at night to their dorm and was approached by unknown male, their immediate reaction is that this man will hurt them. Now I understand that we should be on guard but why is that our first reaction? You could apply this same question to seeing a black male walking down the street. Many of our reaction is that he is going to hurt us when 99% percent of the time the man is just walking to the store. Why are we always on the guard? Why do we feel that there is always someone out there that wants to hurt us?

I feel that our society, our cultural, is calling us to be on guard. Ever since 9/11, we fear that someone is going to attack us again. Which is probably true since we attack back. What if we just talked instead of fight? What if we had an open mind, while still being on guard, but not expecting everyone is out to get us. Open mindedness is key in the world right now. We are all not criminals. We are confused and scared.

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour.
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

Henry Lyte wrote this hymn as he was dying of tuberculosis. He finished the song on the Sunday he was delivering his farewell sermon to his church. He was going to travel to Italy to receive treatment for his illness. He did not make it to Italy and died three weeks after he left his church. Here is an excerpt from his fare­well ser­mon:

“O breth­ren, I stand here among you to­day, as alive from the dead, if I may hope to impress it upon you, and in­duce you to pre­pare for that sol­emn hour which must come to all, by a time­ly ac­quaint­ance with the death of Christ.”

The song is a song of hope. It’s a prayer for God to stay with us in our worst times, in the times when we lose our jobs, when we lose our faith, when we lay at death’s door. The song took on a new meaning for me when I was sick; to the point of death. I particularly love the last the verse of the song. Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes of death to shine me through the gloom of death dark light and point me to the heavenly skies above. Death is not escapable and neither is the work of Christians. While we all die we still all have a life to live and to live that life fully to the Gospel of Christ.

“Behold the life giving cross on which hung the Salvation of the world. Oh Come let us Worship him.”