Friday, March 14, 2008

A Pastoral President

I was listening to NPR this afternoon. Commentators spoke of the impending recession, the falling dollar, the US governments inability to even catch up with the EU on reducing greenhouse emissions, etc.

And I thought at the end of the article, "What can I do?" Stop eating out? Or commit to eating out more and make less food at home? Commit to buying fewer or more new products? What will help my fellow man? And ought we stop touring? Or buy the new plug-in Prius when it comes out this fall?

People have complained about Obama being too much of a Carter, encouraging people to turn their heat down and wear sweaters. But honestly, is there any other way that this society will change? If we somehow expect to keep our same style of life, is there any way that real change will ever happen? And certainly I'm not waiting on the government to tell me how to "do my part." But still I feel that our next leader of the executive branch is going to have to pastor people into a better way.

Is this possible? I sure hope so...or we have dark days ahead.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's one of the reasons I'm so hip to Obama - he crafts his campaign not around what he can do, but what we need to do as a nation to move forward. He promises to tell the citizenry the truth, even if it's an uncomfortable truth. That may not be Hurculean, but it sure is compelling.

Emma said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/opinion/19friedman.html

read this and you might lose all hope like me... i went to dalian with jay this summer.....