It takes a Village

Life is good, God is good and everything will be Okay… That’s we all are saying a lot of in Michigan, or at least we should be. With the economy in a down turn here in Michigan a lot of people are without jobs, or prospects of jobs. It’s a sad state here. Times are hard, and in hard times we need to learn to look to the Lord, he will offer to carry your burden, lighten the load, if only we would let him.

Too many of us are of the mindset that we must do it all ourselves, not to let anyone help us out. Not very Christian of us; the bible is full of stories about helping each other out in hard times.  We just need to put our ego (Edging God Out) aside and let others help out.

The Ego is once again a cause of many of our situations, we are too proud to ask for help, we are too proud to accept what is offered. We are better that that job or this job. Man, do we have problems!

If we look back over our history, the community and family took care of its own, and the Church took care of all of us, Catholic or not. We did what we had to, we needed to survive and we learned how to do just that by placing our Ego aside.

Thank God I still have a job, but I know many who do not, and I offer what little I have to help them out, it’s nothing special, I am just being what God calls me to be, Christ to others. Sure sometimes it may come off as fake, and sometimes I do it not because I want to but because I feel I have to. But either way, I am doing God’s work. I am human, and I often times fail to have the heart of God, I fail to see my fellow man as God would he him, I fail to offer my soul to all I meet. But I keep plugging away, doing the best I can, working in with fallen nature, no work opposite of it.

Many of us will allow our fallen nature take over, we give in to it. I do it, more than I would like to admit. But I know my faults, and I know I am only human, so I try to push myself, go outside of my comfort zone, and leave my  Ego where it belongs, hidden away.

If you have read any of my past blogs, you will know that the Ego, to me, is the root of all sins, it is out mark on our souls. It is the gift that Adam and Eve, our first parents, left us. How lucky we are, NOT!

Maybe the current situation is a corrective action from God, a way to get us back to basics, back to what matters most, God, Faith, Family and friends. We all need to learn to care for each other.  There is an old saying that it takes a village to raise a child, how true that is. And we are all children of God, and we all live in one large village, the village called earth. As Catholics, we have a responsibility to care for each other, to help raise the children of God. To do all we can to lift up the human race.

In the tough economic times we are in, this village must put its Ego aside; we must rise to the challenge and help out our fellow man.

Paul