I have no idea

My mind is a complete blank today.  It might be that I am coming down with a cold that is making the rounds among work and family.  Or it might be the late night XCOM video game binge that I stayed up till two playing.  Yeah, that's probably it.

I find myself tired.  Work is kinda slow as we are prepping for the Texas Legislature to start the 83rd session soon.  I don't talk about my job too much as it is like every other programming job with some unique aspects of working for the state Legislature.  But this is a unique aspect as we are gearing up for supporting session.

I think I'm just tired.  Tired of the election.  Tired of the HHS mandate.  Tired of having to justify to hostile people that just because I believe in God doesn't mean I'm an idiot.  And that those who say I am are usually more worthy of the moniker.

I guess the thing that is crazy is how much hate, anxiety, and fear that exists today.  Everyone seems to have this impression that no matter what happens we are heading off a cliff.  Things just seem too big, too broken, too much damage that has been done.  We all seem to agree on this yet are at each others throats as to how to fix it.

In my mind it's because in order to fix it we have to give up how we live right now.  I have had this nagging feeling for a long time that the wealth and prosperity of Western Civ is an illusion.  The massive debt that we have seems to indicate that we have borrowed our children and our grandchildren's prosperity to keep the broken machine going just a little longer.

Sorry for the downer.  I am typically a "worst-case scenario" planner.  Not as a professional worrier (though I get that way when tired for long time) but that I derive comfort when having a plan based on how to react to the worst possible outcome.  But lately I see no bottom for our society.  Everyone seems to know that this society is going to go belly up yet no one knows what that actually means or what will happen when it does.

I've come to realize why Hope is a theological virtue.  It is something that God has to bestow on us through grace.  We can despair, and that is a sin.  But Hope is something that only God can give us, and Hope in Him is the only logical response to such a mess.

If there is one thing that has always indicated to me the Truth of Christianity is the complete and utter wreck that is humanity when it divorces itself from the Divine.  Our society has completely rejected God, and far from making us happy we are now in the midst of self immolation.  The people who throw God out of their lives seem most often to be the ones who are most unhappy.

I take comfort in the fact that if it were not for God I would not be where I am today.  Grace, when open to it, transforms lives.  When closed, it corrupts.  And like a person a nation, a culture, a society can close itself off to grace.  This closing of the culture is now bearing the evil fruit.

But if Christ gave Himself on the Cross for us, He must have seen something worth giving His life to save.  Christ did not offer His life out of a hopeless love, but one beaming with the Hope that is God.  If Christ is willing to do that, then I have no right to be so down.

Here's hoping the weekend is nice and quiet.