Message of Hope

I hope that all who celebrate the religious holidays of this weekend have been warmed by the company of family and friends. I've been meaning to sit down and write something all day, but did not find time until now.

This morning I read a story in my Sunday newspaper about how ministers were using the Easter stories in the Bible to show how people can overcome insurmountable challenges and periods of great uncertainty, such as we're dealing with now.

This made me think of my own doubts.

Every day I'm reminded over and over of how impossible it is to build a system that would be more consistent in helping people overcome their problems and life challenges. I'm reminded of how corruption seems to be raging in all levels of government, how the environment is being destroyed and how the inevitable pace of global warming will turn vast parts of the world into deserts.

I'm reminded of how the economy, the issues of our own health, the challenges of raising our own kids and taking care of elder parents, makes it almost impossible to spend quality time thinking about ow to help others who have similar problems, but fewer resources to deal with them.

How can one person, with the limited skills and resources that I offer, have an impact on a world with these huge obstacles?

This is the fifth year that I've been writing this blog. Here are a couple of articles I wrote in the past on Easter weekend

EASTER is about Hope. What it means to me (March 2008)

Silent Crisis (April 2006)

I'm reminded of a powerful book titled JESUS, CEO, which shows how one person, with limited skills, a limited network, an unskilled workforce, and no access to Facebook or Twitter, has changed the world for the past 2000 years. I wrote about this a couple of years ago.

My reflections help energize me. I hope you'll take your own inspiration from these articles, and will keep "tilting at the windmills" of immovable mountains to inch forward in doing our best to shape a different world for future generations.

We do have the Internet and all of these social networking tools. Let's use them to connect and give support, and hope, to others who are on a similar path but in different places. We can each be disciples to each other. Maybe we won't have the world-changing impact of Jesus. or Mohammad, or the other great leaders of the world's religions. Maybe we will.