:: in.a.mirror.dimly ::

We have cut back on NPR lately. Bias isn’t a problem. Solid reporting has not been lacking. Our radio is picking up reception just fine.

No, it’s the economy. Our economy that continues to melt down because of rampant greed and growth that cannot be sustained has dominated the news to the point that we both can’t take it any more. things are basically just going down right now, so even if we listen to the news and hear that the Dow is up, the entire world is pretty much in a recession right now and may very well stay in it for the next year.

There has to be something else going on worth reporting.

While I understand there are tragedies unfolding all over the place from job loss, to bank foreclosures, to retirement plans evaporating, there comes a point when we can only talk about the economy so much. We’ve hit a point where we’re just bringing in different experts to say the same things that last week’s experts talked about.

I realized this more than ever with president-elect Obama’s first news conference. The commentators spent an hour basically telling me what he would say. Obama came out and said it. We have since then picked every single word of that speech apart over and over again with experts quoting the same pieces, but adding slightly different spins. It’s almost maddening.

The reason why the media is so obsessed with the economy is our economy has become god. When god dies, it’s a story that people must continue talking about and wrestling with, trying to accept the reality of its death. We are a people wishing amnesia upon ourselves, trapped in denial. We want our booming economy back, where consequences didn’t exist so long as you were making money.

But the news reminds every night that the economy god has died. The days of freewheeling capitalism are over for now, and even a conservative president has partially nationalized our banks. Saving our god drives us to abandon ideology and party loyalty.

“Go shopping” is no longer the solution to our problems. Now we need to face the possibility of financial loss, cutting expenses, and forgetting about those enormous profits. The American dream is about ownership and buying, saving up for the good life one day.

Now the economy has let us down. Many of our plans have been ruined. The source of our security and comfort has abandoned us, and it’s a lonely, vulnerable feeling.

The true God who makes all things and who deeply cares for us offers an alternative plan. Jesus said:

25″Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

28″And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:25-34

May God give us the grace and wisdom to figure out what these words mean for us today.