A Prayer

Father,

Give me strength, wisdom, and the opening of my eyes.
Teach me to walk in your ways all the days of my life.
Grant me humility and the grace to know what I am,
and shield me from my blindness.

When my feet bleed, heal me, but never let me stop walking.
When my arm tires, give me endurance, but never let me stop fighting.
When my sight fails, guide my steps, but never let me close my eyes.
When my burden is heavy, lift me, but never let me think I bear it alone.
Keep me awake in the hour of need, and deliver me from comfort.

Give me the strength to move that which men say cannot be moved. Give me the wisdom and the innocence not to recognize the impossible when I see it. When I face your enemies, grant me courage. When I face your prodigal children, grant me compassion.

When I face a world of pain, give me a comforting hand.
When I face a world of grief, give me a word of joy.
When I face a world of ignorance, give me a voice of reason.
When I face a world of darkness, give me a light.
When I face a world of chaff, give me a torch.

God grant me wisdom and the opening of my eyes.

Living Well

If I were to say to you the words “living well,” the image that would immediately appear in your mind would very likely be of someone else’s life.

In fact, if you’re like many people, trying to make a connection between living well and your own life is a ludicrous endeavor at best. After all, your life isn’t easy. Your schedule is packed; you have no time for yourself. Your dreams get sliced apart every time you dare to show them to the world. Your goals seem more impossible every day. You don’t look good enough, speak well enough, or think fast enough. You’re too poor. If you’re lucky enough to have a significant other (which you probably aren’t) he or she is far from perfect, and you probably don’t deserve them even then. You had a bad childhood. Your parents are distant. Your friends are few and far between. Your future is dim at best.

It’s not your fault, of course; if you had a choice, things would be better. But you don’t. You are, in fact, a victim of your circumstances. Maybe it’s fate, maybe it’s just bad luck, but whatever the case, your place in life certainly isn’t your fault, and it’s certainly not fair.

Bull.

You can’t change the past; regret is pointless. Feeling sorry for yourself won’t get you anywhere; self-pity is a waste of your time. Living well isn’t an unattainable image of someone else’s life; living well is a choice. The world is a brittle crutch, and as long as you lean on it you will never get on your feet. Often the demons in our past have no more power than imaginary monsters in the closet; they only have power as long as we believe in them. As long as you tell yourself your childhood is the cause of the way you are, you’ll be anything else. As long as you tell yourself you’re entitled to a position, you’ll never advance past that position if you’re lucky enough to reach it at all.

The past will never change, and the future only will if you make it your responsibility to change it. You are entitled to nothing. If you want a good life, take it; no one else will give it to you. If you find yourself staring down a long stretch of road, don’t sit and wait for a car that will never come; start walking. If you find yourself against a wall, don’t wait for someone to build a door; climb it. If you find yourself at a river, don’t wait for a boat; dive in. Life is waiting, and you’ll never catch it sitting down.

Politics: A Polemic on Polemics

You radical right-wing fundamentalist religious conservative morons.

Or, if you swing that way: you radical leftist commie tree-hugger liberal morons. Of course, we can’t leave out the milquetoast big brother neocons, the wishy-washy spineless yellow fence-sitters, the backwoods constitutionalist nutcases, or the utopian idealist libertarian freaks. I’m sure I’m missing a few groups, but don’t worry; these days, we try to include people of all beliefs. Even if I didn’t mention you, you can rest assured that most of the human race still considers you an idiot.

Of course, it works both ways. To a member of God’s Own Conservatives ™ or the Level Minded Democrats for World Stability ™, the idiotic parties are, of course, everyone else’s. These high-minded citizens devote themselves passionately to the defeat of the evil swarming in every other belief; sure, they’re locking themselves into an exclusive ideological trough, but by God ( / Allah / Buddha / Reason / Earth Mother Gaia) it’s the right trough!

What these crusaders forget is that there are more important things in life than politics. How ridiculous is it to invest the whole of one’s emotion in just another politician who will be forgotten unless he or she manages to do a spectacularly bad job? Huckabee, Paul, Clinton, O’Bama; all of these names but one will fail and be forgotten, and that one will only be remembered by fourth graders who get extra credit by remembering the presidents in order. Does this mean politics are unimportant? Of course not; exercise your judgment and vote accordingly, but spare me your moral indignation.

The same goes for all of the media’s lauded “hot button” topics. Gay marriage? The Bible condemns greed in the same breath as homosexuality (1 Corinthians 6:9). To support the unlimited accumulation of wealth in capitalism and condemn gay marriage is hypocrisy; vote against it if you will, but spare me your moral indignation.

Global warming? Al Gore winning a Nobel prize for making a movie about it does not make it invalid; Rush Limbaugh sneering at it does not make it true. Believing something to be true simply because the opposition believes it to be false is supremely foolish; educate yourself and decide accordingly, but spare me your moral indignation.

Iraq? Saddam Hussein was a cruel dictator, but helping make people’s lives better was never a stated goal for the occupation. It may well be the fact that we now have a responsibility to stay in Iraq until the job is done. It may well be the case that the best thing would be for us to leave. Choose for yourself, but spare me your moral indignation.

Illegal immigration? Foreigners moving illegally into a nation, refusing to learn the language, and building their own culture has happened before; it’s how we got Texas. Vote against it for practical or economic reasons, but spare me your moral indignation.

Candidates? This candidate is wish-washy, this one is flirting with communism; your candidate is human, and that makes him or her completely inadequate for the job. Accept this, and accept the fact that your candidate’s opposition are not in fact out to destroy America, and spare me your moral indignation.

Our government has a strong affect on our daily lives, and it is our duty as citizens to educate ourselves and vote for the candidate we believe to be best. So do so; but spare me your moral indignation.