Each year, at Christmas, I find myself disappointed in what I see going on in the world. We’re still sending our young people into other nations with the hope we’ll win the hearts and minds of the indigenous culture at muzzle point. People from those nations send their young and sadly misinformed to our (and other) lands to force conversion of a different culture. They want to raise an awareness of their God’s mercy from the ashes and rubble of bombed out buildings and using, as a foundation, the graves of those killed to create converts.

Where carolers sing praises and hosannas in perfect harmony, they couldn’t drown the cries of the starving masses, the injured and maimed or the widows and orphaned children asking – WHY? They never question WHAT really makes this all so desperately tragic. They look for hate and lies and politics to define and justify their actions. While casting aspersions on the integrity of the enemy they fail to see they also carry the stigma of what they curse worst.

Peace – the greatest gift they could give is elusive again. They fail to see their own intolerance as a part of the problem.

The Christmas season ends and we look hopefully toward the New Year. But we convince ourselves the repetition of our past efforts (in the same manner and way) will get us different and better results. Einstein said this was insanity; the entry and processing of the same data over and over again in expectation of receiving different results. We never seem to learn.

The efforts people make to improve their lot in life always seem to be based on their perceptions of what they’ll get out of any particular proposition. Seldom do people look to see what’s best for mankind in general: clean, abundant water in arid lands, good and bountiful crops in once fallow fields, peace where there is war, joy where profuse tears fall all too often. The songs people sing too often are lamentations and dirges.

This must change.

Acquisitiveness is more the nature of the human beast than the resolution of its hungers. Politics as usual is the game played in our own Congress as people claim they’re listening but function in the same manner they always have. Their course of action always follows partisan lines demarcated by political party agendas, personal goals and excesses of individuals in power. Nobody’s pure and all carry the stains of greed and self-possession like columns they use to support the structures they seek to control.

We have a Dis-United Nations where politics is the game played rather than the path followed to resolve issues. Countries seek ascendancy beyond the limits they placed on themselves by refusing to work toward goodness and peace. The illusion of one weapon giving them more power than their enemies is never more than a chance to show the foolishness of men seeking recognition for false piety. Instead of making life a triumph they trumpet the alleged tyranny of their chosen enemies. They’d rather fight than bond with them to better their own people’s present and future.

Man’s weakness is in the need for personal recognition. Men posture as though the greater nation will bring God’s favor sooner and in more bounty. The need to enlist others lends credence to their pursuit of Godhood and omnipotence. They alone claim knowledge of God’s will.

The last time I checked, NOBODY had a lock on what God said, means or wants other than we should care for each other.

We need to start looking for a better way.

Ellen Goodman, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist said it best:

We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up lots of work to be   done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the      rooms of our lives… not looking for flaws, but for potential.

That potential we need to take advantage of is in the simple kindness God put in us to begin with.

Happy New Year. Live and Love in Peace.

Thanks for listening.