Jesus is Watching You!

We hit the road at the cruel crack of dawn this morning. The car was loaded down with enough stuff to make seven of these journeys, but we wanted to make sure that we hadn't forgotten anything and we went for broke.I find it difficult to pack light anymore. The last time we took an actual vacation before this one, the town was destroyed in a terrible inferno and all that remained was what I had in one suitcase. And with the way disasters are hitting these days, the only thing that stands between you and disaster after you step out of the door to anywhere is a single roll of the Cosmic Dice. And when it comes up craps, that's all she wrote.

The people of New Orleans learned that the hard way. And they didn't make point again this time when Rita came calling. Lady Luck went to Texas and New Orleans crapped out again under five feet of water. If you wonder why that is, the Religious Right say they have the answer: New Orleans got punished because God has gotten tired of the Sin that soaks the streets there every day. That's what they're saying. Not that God flooded New Orleans so he could see how rich folk like Trent Lott and Pat Robertson would treat the poor and the afflicted afterward, so he could see for himself whether anyone actually learned anything about what Jesus had to say about the Golden Rule and humility and charity. Nope. God's mighty wrath was unleashed upon the poor in New Orleans because He's really pissed at sin and He wanted the barons of Big Oil to have an opportunity to make record profits this year as a just reward for all their good and decent acts of late.

Jesus is big business these days, and he's watching us. He's watching out for sin. Nowhere was this more apparent this week than just outside of Farmington, NM, where Caroline and I saw the likeness of the Biggest of the Big Guy's looming over a roadside Den of Iniquity. Just down the road, on the other side of the highway in Kirtland, there was a store selling sex toys for couples, its wares shamelessly advertised in bright day-glow colors, as if couples sex toys were as ordinary as April rains. Maybe they are in Kirtland, which could explain why that place had no billboard over it. But Jesus sees every which way, so they're not getting away with anything. They're only fooling themselves. Since they're out of the flood plain over there, we can only guess what type of disaster will befall that area in the days and weeks ahead. God's dishing out wrath these days like the Red Cross is dishing out relief checks. We were glad to leave dusty, sin-filled Farmington far behind. We didn't want to be around when all hell broke loose.

Okay, so I realize none of this has anything to do with vacation, other than since we've been able to stay away from work we've had more opportunity to read the news, and that's where we read about the Religious Right's latest shameful pronouncement. And we were able to drive through Farmington and see what the Religous Right is spending their money on these days. Billboards won't help much in New Orleans, except maybe for creating some high ground where people can escape the water while they figure out what they're going to do next. Having been through a disaster myself, I can say with authority that those peoples' struggles are just going to be getting started once the Media pull out and Katrina becomes yesterday's news. The Religious Right should be talking about God's mercy. Because that's what the people of South need most of all right now.

See you on down the road.