«Entonces también ellos le responderán diciendo: “Señor, ¿cuándo te vimos hambriento, sediento, forastero, desnudo, enfermo o en la cárcel, y no te servimos?” Entonces les responderá diciendo: “De cierto os digo que en cuanto no lo hicisteis a uno de estos más pequeños, tampoco a mí lo hicisteis”» (Mateo 25: 44-45).

I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions and it’s been years since I spent hours on the first day of the year calling everyone in my address book. The truth is, the annual resetting of the calendar brings me more pain than joy. I’ve long rejected the samsara influenced myth that sees the first day of January as some sort of magical reset button. Oh, I wish we did have an opportunity to do some things over, but experience has taught me that this is absolutely impossible.

This season’s Republican primary battle makes one wonder if the leading contestants have secretly signed a deal with a reality television promoter. It appears that every day brings a story more shocking than the previous revelation as the drama intensifies by the minute. While the plot thickens, the needle on the public shockometer hardly registers as people’s sensitivities are seemingly immunized to the bizarre dysfunction.

Georgia on His Mind

“Then they will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and not help you?’ And he will answer, ‘I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.’” (Matthew 25:44-45)

With election year around the corner and licking fresh wounds from the upsetting loss of a “safe” congressional seat, nervous Republicans in the New York State Assembly abandoned allegiance to DOMA* and joined their Democratic colleagues in making New York the sixth state of the Union to legalize gay marriage. The elected representatives in the state of Anthony Weiner have demonstrated to the rest of the nation that certain expressions of previously sexually taboo behavior have been sanitized in the whimsical font of political correctness.

Here in the United States, it seems as if the election cycle never ends. No sooner than an elected official is sworn in, his or her opponents begin their nasty usurpation quest. They and their supporters seem to do everything in their power to thwart the plans of the person in office, as they seek every opportunity to pounce on trivial shortcomings–whether real or imagined. For those of us who have become frustrated with the constant political posturing and endless campaigning, this is more than a “silly season” it is a pilotless runaway train.

Last Sunday, as bemused citizens in scattered areas of Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee faced the reality of a seriously devastating multiple tornado attack, the President of the United States made a surprise “mission accomplished” speech. During the elections, the resilient rookie Senator from Illinois had promised to hunt down and kill the man whom the Bush administration blamed for the unnatural disaster that shook New York on September 11, 2001.

I recently recalled my painful experience of watching Hotel Rwanda. Nominated for three Academy Awards® and two Golden Globes®, Hotel Rwanda tells the true story of Paul Rusesabagina, a Hutu hotel manager who helped to save the life of over 1,200 Tutsi fugitives during the 1994 Rwandan conflict. As the nations of the world turned their heads, the Hutu military–assisted by gangs of radical extremists and the French army–conducted the most atrocious act of genocide in recent history as they slaughtered almost one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus.