Money is often lumped in with religion and politics as items we don’t like talking about. So let’s include it in a larger discussion of possessions and recognizing the source of our blessings, along with an understanding that stewardship is and always has been bigger than the money we give to a church.

Being good stewards is being mindful of the needs of others. It means opening our ears to the discussion surrounding fair and equitable wages- and not necessarily the $15/hr-plus that has materialized since Covid-19 landed. I’m talking about the laborer in Ecuador or Guatemala working for peanuts and as a result making it possible for us to buy bananas for a palatable 49 cents a pound, on special.  

Being a good steward means, at a more personal and challenging level, shifting our understanding of terms like “scarcity” and “abundance” and “sufficiency.” It means moving the line when it comes to what we understand to be “enough.”

We will get zero help from the army of marketers who do their demographic studies and view us primarily as consumers. With enviable though misplaced zeal, they will do their best to convince us that there is no such thing as “enough.”

The New Horizons fly-by of Pluto a while back, with its accompanying transmission of amazing photos, has once again given me reason to pause and contemplate a variety of things- from human resourcefulness to the mind-blowing distances and speed covered and sustained with the help of a small amount of nuclear fuel in a baby grand piano-sized spacecraft.

          It took a vehicle that could travel from central PA to Toledo, OH in roughly 1 minute… nine and a half years to travel the 3 billion miles to Pluto. If it were traveling at a speed of only 60 mph, it would take seven thousand years to get there.

          In the Colorado Scale Model of the Solar System, the Sun being the size of a grapefruit, earth would be roughly the size of a pinhead about 50 feet away. Pluto would be the size of a flake of ground pepper about 2000 feet away. And the nearest star- Alpha Centauri- would be about 2500 miles away. All this within our own solar system and Milky Way galaxy.

          Meanwhile, here on earth, a cacophony of voices competes for our attention- or rattles on on behalf of inflated egos- in the midst of contentious legislative debates and a relentless pandemic.

          We argue over what makes for patriotism. We try to navigate amidst homegrown terrorism, growing income inequality, reactive and politically motivated speeches on all sorts of issues. Vicious storms, hot summers, snowless winters, budget stalemates. La nina. Lions and tigers and…

          Looking at a stunning EPIC photo of earth from a million miles out, one might think all is well on this magnificent blue and white marble. Looks are deceiving.

          We spend not enough time looking up, though. Sure, we need to pay attention to what’s in front of us- the needs of our families, various social ills, environmental stewardship. The list can quickly grow long and formidable. And it is difficult to appreciate or contemplate our place in the universe when life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness seem to be passing us by.

Perhaps we could all benefit from a pause in the raucous debates, in the stinging barbs, in the uninformed assumptions, in the misdirected anger. Call a truce, as in that fabled suspension of battle in WW I, on Christmas Eve, when the warring sides emerged from their entrenchment, left their positions, and shared a moment of… peace?

Makes me wonder, if this actually happened, how they could go back and pick up where they left off.

There’s no way to parse the Manchin “no” vote threat apart from it being the sad result of pressure from his donors. As many reports are noting, he can hide behind the reasoning that the BBB bill is too expensive, but the reality is more likely to be that he simply remains in the pocket of the Koch brothers and Big Coal and natural gas concerns.

The seeming fact that one person can derail programs that are wildly popular even among West Virginians—never mind the whole country—is just another reason to be angry about the state of our government, the power of Fox News, and the selective use of polling.

Maybe the biggest travesty in an age full of them is that Joe Manchin will be remembered as the principled one who stood up to the “pressure” of other members of his party (what party is he a part of again?) and voted his conscience.

Yeah, that’s what he was doing.

Do you ever wonder how things would be different if Jesus burst on the scene in today’s world instead of ancient Palestine? Would his teachings stand up, be the same? Would he be able to get his bearings and understand the dynamics of a world which in significant ways is better understood by its inhabitants?

          Would he even be relevant? People would chew him up on Twitter. He’d offend large swaths of the population in one way or another. So, yes, he’d be as relevant as he ever was. Some would listen with detached fascination, others would believe wholeheartedly. Others would derisively dismiss him. Still others would look for ways to silence him.

So I dare think that his mission and purpose would be exactly the same. The human dynamics haven’t changed. We are still full of ourselves, easily tempted and distracted, self-involved, hell-bent on “going it alone” and living life on our terms.

His fate would be sealed at the hands of people who felt threatened by his popularity and deference for the poor. Their consciences would be pricked by his insistence on living a clean, honest, God-fearing life. And they’d never grasp the grace, the capacity for forgiving and loving those we consider unlovable.

So, welcome to what’s left of 2021, Jesus. You’d fit right in.

As much as you could ever fit in.

An article, sponsored by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and first reported on in The Guardian several years ago, examined five key factors that led to the collapse of civilizations such as the Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty in China:  population, climate, water, agriculture, and energy.

          The study found that civilizations collapse when these factors coalesce in such a way that natural resources are stretched at the same time the gap between the rich and the poor increases.

          The upshot? Our end will not come because resources run low. Rather it will be hastened by a skewed distribution of those resources as a result of good old-fashioned greed.

          Whether or not this study has any more validity than others of the sort will of course be a matter of opinion and born out with the passage of time.

          But might it get us thinking, at least?

          Regardless of which side of the aisle we’re on- whether we’re red-staters or blue-staters or somewhere in between- our Christian calling requires of us that we be not only mindful of inequality and injustice, but that we find ways to work toward eradicating these things.

          Maybe this study only serves to reinforce something we already know but don’t like to admit: that wealth and power have a numbing, insulating effect on the heart, that lifestyles of wealth and power often enough will be fed and sustained at just about any and anyone’s expense.

          The authors of this study suggest that the collapse of civilization as we know it might not be all that different from what happens in movies like “Blade Runner,” “Elysium,” and “The Hunger Games.”    God help us.

In one of the newsfeeds I subscribe to, there was an article written by someone who was dissatisfied with his recent IPhone purchase. In fact, he used the word “hate.”

          Apparently, he couldn’t navigate the screen with one hand.

          For folks who depend on their technology to get them through the day and handle the tasks on their plates, this inconvenience may loom a lot larger than for the rest of us who might be ready to break out our air violins or offer a derisive, “Are you serious?”

          This critic returned to another current IPhone model for his smartphone needs, so hopefully he found happiness there. His parting shot for the folks at Apple included surprise and disappointment that the designers hadn’t anticipated this hiccup in form and function.

Turns out they apparently hadn’t thought of everything.

For some of us who will never invent anything or risk even the most modest of failures, critique of advanced pieces of technology like smartphones or a host of other items we’d like for Christmas might seem misplaced and somehow uncalled for. For some of us who just consume and use without any thought for how these wondrous things were developed or actually work, such critique may sound a lot like whining.

Maybe the folks at Apple- or any other company- feel the same way, but they say they appreciate the feedback and tweek their products, trying to keep the customer satisfied.

“He’s destroying his legacy.”

What legacy would that be? It’s laughable, if not for being so sad.

Eight hundred thousand and counting.

Health care systems and workers who keep having to tell the public that they can’t do what they do much longer. Attrition, exhaustion, retirement, anger, frustration, running on empty, a dissipation of empathy. When this scourge finally subsides, our doctors and nurses and EMTs and vaccine researchers should be up for a Congressional medal of some sort. And the Fox News crowd have to stop being mad at Fauci and Osterholm and the CDC and anyone else who’s trying to tell it like it is with regard to the pandemic.

I can’t imagine there are many of us on either side of the issues who want this thing to linger. But it is what it is. Covid-19 is doing what viruses do when there’s a robust supply of defenseless targets. It evolves, to the point of finding ways to go after the ones who think they’re protected! Between vaccine skepticism and misinformation and inequitable distribution of the vaccines worldwide, none of what’s happened and is happening should be remotely surprising. Disheartening and disappointing for sure, but not surprising.

We all know how to wear a mask and keep our distance and wash our hands. If more of us had actually done these things early on, we wouldn’t still be talking about this right now. And let’s not forget the three vaccines at our disposal.

Three of them. Readily available here in America.

Read most of an article in The Atlantic yesterday by someone who says that for him and his family, Covid has been over for a long time. That it has never really been an issue, in fact. He appeared to downplay the reaction by people on the left and people in the medical and infectious disease communities, and pretty much poked holes in the way this whole pandemic has been approached.

It struck me as just another dose of the smug, ignorant tone-deafness that has defined the laissez-faire and faux-patriotic attitude toward common sense precautions like masks and social distancing, and vaccines. Just a lot of words that don’t really say anything, as far as I’m concerned. There seems to be great difficulty simply acknowledging that a pandemic isn’t normal, and that people more knowledgeable on the subject are genuinely—and legitimately– concerned. It’s not just another flu season.

People of this mindset speak with unwarranted authority on a topic in which they are not well-versed. They have opinions. They wonder what all the fuss is about because thus far they and their immediate families have somehow been fortunate enough to avoid any effect of the virus.

This writer smugly wears his good fortune and twists the knife on those in the medical and public health fields who are trying to warn the public of the danger in not caring. He takes pot shots at the way we have proceeded—seemingly of the mind that the whole thing has been nothing to be concerned about, really. Almost like he, from his self-appointed lofty perch, could be doing a better job. This seems recklessly cavalier.

It has me thinking about karma, and hoping that he gets a dose. He sounds an awful lot like a smart ass, so maybe there’s a place for him somewhere in the DeSantis administration.

Sometimes it seems wrong that our attention as a nation isn’t riveted on certain events and situations unfolding around and among us. Like yesterday… the NFL Sunday games unfolded on schedule, millions tuned in, and all the while this massive tragedy was playing out in MO and KY and AR and elsewhere, as thousands of people walked around in a daze because their houses and towns and cities have been reduced to piles of rubble and so many have died, all as Christmas and winter approach and a god-forsaken pandemic continues. If the DJIA rises today, well, I don’t know what that means, other than being indicative of some giant disconnect.

Anyway, a supercell storm and one tornado that stayed on the ground for over 200 miles? At night? In December? Sounds like a slice of devilish hell to me. In one sense, it’s a grievously painful reminder that we are always living alongside and at the mercy of forces that are way beyond our capacity to control (unless this was exacerbated by climate change), but also it’s one more gigantic thing along with the fifty other gigantic things that people are dealing with right now. What are we all supposed to be learning from this? You’d think that many will not come back from it—emotionally, financially, and all other ways.

Note to insurance companies—have the chickens come home to roost yet? Pretty nice gig you have there, until the “acts of God” start piling up and you have to shell out all that premium money.

These are hard times. And fuck you, Vladimir P. Nothing like a war to inflate your diminutive stature, grease the wheels of commerce, and add to the darkness.