Power, please.

I've been thinking about power a lot lately, and how so much of what we do everyday really comes back to our need for it. I don't like to think that I have this problem too, because really, it's much easier to look at the corporate criminals tied up in the Enron scandal and see them as the real power addicts. But essentially, that is to fall into what Madeleine L'Engle dubs judgmentalism and it is too crowded of a road to walk down already. Every time I feel the urge, the need, the must-ness to be right, I'm struggling with power. Every time I look at someone else, and envy and and envy and envy whatever it is they have that I don't, I'm struggling with power. And every time I let control lead, and allow certainty to continually pave my way, I'm giving in and buying into whatever lie power is marketing and advertising.

It is indeed everywhere we turn here in America. You don't have to look too long or too hard before you find it or see it. Power is what so many of our conversations are really about and it's sad to see and understand and comprehend how this very thing can rip the Church apart--and the world too, for that matter.

But still, life seems worth the risk. The risk of living for love is a "fearful gamble," (again, Madeleine L'Engle's phrase---not my own) but it is one I'm ready and willing and wanting to repeatedly make.