The Messiah Is Here

"I'm sick of Bush," said Jim, shaking his head in disgust. "His lies and his endless wars, torture, spying, corruption and greed. And he's responsible for that Wall Street bailout of rich thieves."

"Barack Obama is the answer," Julie said with fire in her voice. "When he's President, things are really going to change."

Across America people are speaking like this, as are others elsewhere in the world. In desperation some people talk of Obama as the Messiah who will save us from the ravages of war and a potential financial collapse while leading us into energy independence and out of global warming.

Those who think of Obama as the Messiah will be greatly disappointed as he is as imperfect as the rest of us. And our problems are so severe that waiting for him to solve them will fail.

As President he will face a power structure that gives little ground and his campaign promises mean nothing to them. The Pentagon and their contractors, national security organizations such as the NSA and the CIA, giant oil companies, big pharmaceutical firms and other huge entrenched interests and their lobbyists are determined to continue to have their way.

At best, Obama can offer inspirational leadership to accomplish a vision for America he can express and unite us behind. At worst, he can compound our problems by continuing the current policies of spending huge sums of money we don't have on endless wars and corporate bailouts and subsidies.

Ideally, he will spend money to help people in desperate need and to secure Social Security, Medicare and other vital social programs. But if he does it with unfunded dollars, meaning he doesn't slash the budget elsewhere a like amount or RAISE TAXES to pay for it, we will sink even deeper into debt, like a financial Titanic, for as the Wall Street bailout shows us we have now hit the iceberg. Our financial security is in grave danger.

But take heart for the Messiah is here.

Jesus, who some people claim is the Messiah, said the Kindom of God is within each of us. If so, the Messiah is you, me and the rest of humanity. And as imperfect as we are individually, together we can move mountains.

And move mountains we must because we have Mt. Everest size problems. Fortunately there are many quality organizations set up to deal individually with the elements which underly most of our problems: hunger, disease, ignorance, warfare and lack of government accountability.

We can each pick one organization and volunteer some time and/or make regular donations to them. We can encourage them with our commitment of resources and our supportive letters and emails, thus letting them know we are thankful for their work, not indifferent.

Or you take direct action. You can recycle and encourage others to. You can conserve energy. You can bring people together behind a common cause such as ending the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and you can support global disarmament before we destroy our planet.

If as Jesus said the Kingdom of God is within, we must now rise to that stature and take action to uplift our nation and to save humanity from disaster.

Dick