Stakes

As I arrive in New York, the contrast from home, peace, and family and the big city is stark.  There is virtually nothing in common, yet everything transcends.  People are just that, people.  Relationships thrive in a wide variety of situations and circumstances.  Opportunities abound.  They are just different! 
 
In both circumstances, I find myself getting lost in the immediacy of the moment.  It is far too easy to focus on the day-to-day deliverables, slights of any type, and ego than to see what it really at stake.  Whatever our goals are, the present consumes us.  Challenges are confronted, emotionally more than with thought and reflection.  We seize opportunities, regardless of their importance or relevance.  There is an alternative!
 
When an adversary confronted a king, he took the matters to God.  In reflection, his prayer is a model we would do well to understand.  “God-of-the-Angel-Armies, enthroned over the cherubim-angels, you are God, the only God there is, God of all kingdoms on earth.  You made heaven and earth.  Listen, O God, and hear.  Look, O God, and see.  Mark all these words of Sennacherib that he sent to mock the living God.  It's quite true, O God, that the kings of Assyria have devastated all the nations and their lands.  They've thrown their gods into the trash and burned them—no great achievement since they were no-gods anyway, gods made in workshops, carved from wood and chiseled from rock.  An end to the no-gods!  But now step in, O God, our God.  Save us from him.  Let all the kingdoms of earth know that you and you alone are God.”  (Isaiah 37.15-20) 
 
There was far more than a kingdom at stake, then and now.  The challenge was primarily with and to God.  What he did, what we do, directly relates to how the communities in which we live see God.  Eternal principles and values are at stake!  Will compassion win out over survival of the fittest?  Is love stronger than anger?  Does compassion make sense in a capitalistic system?  Our lives do, will tell the answer.