Treasures on Earth

Are you angry yet? Does it make your blood boil that Wall Street executives can walk off with personal fortunes made by running the world’s economy into the ground? Or AIG executives blowing almost a half million dollars on a retreat, complete with manicures and pedicures, after obtaining a taxpayer bailout of a mere 85 billion dollars?

Are you afraid? Watching your nest egg shrinking before your eyes? Thinking about retirement or how you can pay for your children’s college educations? Will there even be jobs for them after they graduate? Will there even be colleges? What on earth is there to do?

Anger and fear are contagious. Just listen to people talking in the stores and coffee shops. Just watch the markets. We can allow ourselves to be infected by anger and fear and become carriers ourselves…or perhaps there is another way.

A few rays have light have recently slipped through the stormy sky. I read a comment the other day by someone at the US News web site. He was a subscriber to the Wall Street Journal. For the past two weeks he had been going out to the mail box and walking the Journal directly to his trash barrel. His advice was to stop wasting time watching TV and reading the news, stop whining, and go give your work everything you have. His solution was to take care of our own business and be a part of the solution instead of the problem.

Pope Benedict commented on the financial crisis saying that “money is nothing” and “the only solid reality is the word of God.” He went on to say “he who builds only on visible and tangible things like success, career and money, builds the house of his life on sand.''These are truly good times to turn off the news and stop worrying about things we cannot control. These are good times to start reading the Bible again or other things we’ve come to know will uplift us. These are good times to find a quiet place to reflect upon what truly is important and what we still have that makes us rich in spirit. The rest is all props, not reality. It’s easy to forget that when it seems like the visible world is collapsing.

So it’s time to stop being afraid and to stop spreading the fear. It’s time to go about our business, enjoy the moment and let people know that you are not afraid. Go out of your way to greet others with a smile. Wish them well, even if silently. Live within your means but don’t hoard your time or your money. These are better times to give, if not in money, then a part of yourself. Join a service club. Ring bells for the Salvation Army. Get off your self-pity and do something positive. It is in giving, not in taking, that we receive. Maybe that is the lesson God is trying to teach us.