This Side of Heaven

I had a great conversation yesterday down at The Raven with my friend Sean. We talked about a lot of issues, including what the world would look like if we really started to work towards God's will being done "on earth as it is in Heaven." (For these are not just nice sentiments... where we cross our fingers, hope for the best and wait for Jesus to come back and fix the mess. I'm actually coming to think he's crossing his fingers and waiting for us to start to fix it ourselves, but I digress...)

This "Kingdom view" forms the base of my thinking as I read through the growing list of articles pertaining to Katrina and its aftermath. I've just reread Tom Friedman's column from Wednesday. I'm not always on the same page with Friedman, but I always respect his opinions and his writing.

Check out the entire column if you haven't yet, but here are the money paragraphs:

The Bush team has engaged in a tax giveaway since 9/11 that has had one underlying assumption: There will never be another rainy day. Just spend money. You knew that sooner or later there would be a rainy day, but Karl Rove has assumed it wouldn't happen on Mr. Bush's watch - that someone else would have to clean it up. Well, it did happen on his watch.

Besides ripping away the roofs of New Orleans, Katrina ripped away the argument that we can cut taxes, properly educate our kids, compete with India and China, succeed in Iraq, keep improving the U.S. infrastructure, and take care of a catastrophic emergency - without putting ourselves totally into the debt of Beijing.

In my life I'm trying to dispel the dualism of a sacred/secular world that many of us were formed in and through. It's all sacred; this is God's realm. I believe when Jesus said the things he did, he was actually talking to us. I believe the world he described is not something to sit and wait for, but to help bring about. That is the light I am viewing current events in.

So far, not so good.

Comments

[bobbie]

i really liked this op-ed too. the idea of jesus crossing his fingers made me laugh. i'm with you - let's bring it about!

[Rick]

Mike, apologize for the double trackback, please feel free to delete one... TypePad not registering successful trackback pings for some reason.