If there was ever a good day for prayer...
...it would be today. Hurricane Katrina has made landfall. Let us hold all of those whose lives have been and will be affected by this storm, in our hearts. Let us especially hold those whose lives were already difficult because of poverty, or age, or disability.
I also hold three people I know who have been struck by loss in the last two weeks: a woman from my church whose father has died after a lengthy illness; a man from my church whose mother died, suddenly, while in the Colorado mountains on vacation with her sons; and someone in ministry, who was let go from the job into which he has poured heart and soul for five years, because the new, large-corporation owner of the entity where he had been serving has its own plans for the future.
This last one is a person I obviously don't know well but respect greatly. The corporation has not, IMHO (and remember, I don't know all the facts) dealt ethically or justly with the employees of its acquired company, and I am reminded once again that there is what I can only call evil afoot in our American culture, an evil that surfaces all too often in business decision-making. I don't use the word evil lightly, but the widening gap between rich and poor, the sharp decline in customer service, and the tendency of a privileged few to make decisions that decrease quality of life for the less-privileged many, be they employees or customers, certainly paint for me a picture of evil. Much of the evil is unconscious evil, as our systems are set up to either protect decision-makers from, or minimize perception of, the effects of their decisions. Nontheless people's lives are being destroyed for the benefit of a very small privileged few, and it is happening every day, and the sentimental Christianity of the ruling powers that be sticks in my craw. If you want an example of what I mean, visit the website for The Denver Post (http://www.denverpost.com) and read the articles about workers whose promised pensions have evaporated.
And pray, pray for us all.
On a more positive note, our church hosted Carolyn Marshall and Pat Grant of Marshall-Grant Ministries, which is a traveling ministry of Christian music and inspiration. Lovely women, delightful to work with, and they put on a great show. Made for a good evening last night, welcome after so much bad news.
I also hold three people I know who have been struck by loss in the last two weeks: a woman from my church whose father has died after a lengthy illness; a man from my church whose mother died, suddenly, while in the Colorado mountains on vacation with her sons; and someone in ministry, who was let go from the job into which he has poured heart and soul for five years, because the new, large-corporation owner of the entity where he had been serving has its own plans for the future.
This last one is a person I obviously don't know well but respect greatly. The corporation has not, IMHO (and remember, I don't know all the facts) dealt ethically or justly with the employees of its acquired company, and I am reminded once again that there is what I can only call evil afoot in our American culture, an evil that surfaces all too often in business decision-making. I don't use the word evil lightly, but the widening gap between rich and poor, the sharp decline in customer service, and the tendency of a privileged few to make decisions that decrease quality of life for the less-privileged many, be they employees or customers, certainly paint for me a picture of evil. Much of the evil is unconscious evil, as our systems are set up to either protect decision-makers from, or minimize perception of, the effects of their decisions. Nontheless people's lives are being destroyed for the benefit of a very small privileged few, and it is happening every day, and the sentimental Christianity of the ruling powers that be sticks in my craw. If you want an example of what I mean, visit the website for The Denver Post (http://www.denverpost.com) and read the articles about workers whose promised pensions have evaporated.
And pray, pray for us all.
On a more positive note, our church hosted Carolyn Marshall and Pat Grant of Marshall-Grant Ministries, which is a traveling ministry of Christian music and inspiration. Lovely women, delightful to work with, and they put on a great show. Made for a good evening last night, welcome after so much bad news.
posted by terri c at
10:31 AM
1 Comments:
Ohhhh I remember when Katrina made landfall. I was waiting to have my youngest child (THE NEXT DAY WOULD BE DAY ONE OFF THE DRUGS TO STOP LABOR! WHOO!), and my mother (who had flown in that day) and I sat on the couch and ate ice cream and sipped herbal tea and talked about how glad we were that she was here already, and marveled, and she urged me to go outside and walk around in the low pressure to see if it would "suck the baby out!" (I did NOT, but did take my ice cream out on the porch and sit in a camp chair while the sky turned green. At one point during the night my husband came out and joined me, and we were both standing in the one place on our (rather sizeable, overhung by a roof) front porch that the rain wasn't hitting, sideways, clinging to each other with this huge feeling of things being on the brink of happening...wow. And it wasn't until two weeks later that the little stinker actually came out to meet us (via induction)...
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