St. Timothy Lutheran Church

Let's face it: on this side of the curtain, things aren't looking so hot. We're still at war against terrorists, with no end in sight, and now there's potential conflict with Russia in our future. Scientists are trying to figure out what's going on with the Sun, which has been behaving strangely lately, and what it might mean for us Earthlings. Lending and banking industries are crashing and burning, and there's a lot of fear that they'll take our entire economy down with them. And so as we approach the date on which we will elect our next president, while there are plenty like myself who have never been less excited about an election, many are hoping that either McCain or Obama will be able to come up with a plan that will save us from this mess.

But let's face something else too, and I want to bring this up by asking some questions: Have you ever made any unwise financial decisions? Have you ever willingly subjected yourself to debt in order to have something that you didn't absolutely need? Have you ever been purposefully unkind toward someone else? Have you ever put your own wants above someone else's needs? Have you ever found yourself in a bad position because you couldn't see the future and tried to make the best choice you could, only to find out it wasn't such a good choice?

We're quick to blame institutions or governments or groups of people when things are heading south. It's Al Queda's fault. It's Russia's fault. This is all because of people trashing the environment. We wouldn't be in these straits if the Bush administration had made better choices. If the environmentalists would stop whining about drilling, we wouldn't be so dependent on other countries for oil.

What we all need to face - what YOU and I need to face, if we answered "yes" to any of the above questions, is the fact that the blame for the various fixes we find ourselves in lies squarely on our own shoulders. Institutions, governments, and industries, are all made of people, and people are broken. We have all succumbed at one time or another to greed, selfishness, anger, spite, cheating, manipulating, or various other forms of un-love and pettiness.

Before you start asking what the next president can do to make things better, ask yourself what you can do. What are you doing to improve conditions for the people you intersect? How are you making your little kingdom a better part of the world to live in? Yes, you should vote, and vote wisely, but don't put too much hope on the next president, and don't be too dismayed if the other guy wins. Neither of them will be able to save us from ourselves. There's only one Fix for that.