The Audacity of Faith

Without being judgmental towards anyone, I would have to say that this has been one of the most eventful times in our history. It seems as if we crawl out of one disaster and another one creeps up on us. I honestly do not think that if we had the foresight to see these that anyone would have ran for president back in 2000, except a man ready for the padded cell.

First, we have the twin towers incident which happened before the new president even had a chance to unpack his bags in the White House. An incident which, I think, everyone would agree, could have ruined this nation economically if it had occurred in some prior time. The fact that it didn’t can be attributed to the fact we live in the computer age.

Then we get into wars in two separate countries. Wars, I might add, that saw very unconventional ways of fighting wars. Wars that have divided this nation politically as nothing else could or has since the time of the Civil War. Wars, I might add, that have seen accusations of hatred spewed by all sides of the issue.

While these wars are being fought, we have had two devastating acts of nature in the names of Katrina and Ike. I would also like to say that, even as devastating as these acts of nature were, very few lives were lost. That is something few nations around the world could say if a disaster like this happened there.

Now, we are in the midst of another economic disaster due to sub-prime loans. This disaster may end up as the worst of all. For it is challenging our faith of the very way of life that we have depended on and have even promoted around the world. It has struck at a time when that faith in it is needed most because there are those who will use this as a means to convince us to change that way of life. Hope of a better way is the promise

Whether people say it or not economic woes is a part of the way of life that we have chosen and it has made us the most powerful nation in the world. The history of our economy will affirm this. The history of our nation declares we can come out of this a much stronger nation if we maintain the faith that our forefathers had. It is not hope we need. It is not change we need. It is faith that will bring us through it, faith in ourselves as a people, faith in each other as a people.

Let those who seek change panic. Let those who need hope panic. Those who have faith have no need to panic for they know what they already have. Those who have faith already know what they have been given and they give thanks for it and are not afraid of the future.

We have always been a nation of faith. We have always been a nation that was built upon faith. Its strength has always been the strength of a people who had faith in their own abilities. We are a people who seek not hope in others for we are a people who have always had faith in ourselves. Maintain that faith, my friends. For it comes from our fathers who had the audacity of that faith. Build the dreams of your fathers, my friends, but build them upon faith he had. They can never be built upon the hopes and promises of another.

Those, who seek hope, will always be led by the nose down the path of hope and change. Those who have faith will lead themselves down their own path. Choose the leader that you seek to follow. Just remember one thing as you choose. The leader is always the one who reaps the benefits of the path well chosen. The followers are always the ones who must pay the consequences of a path poorly chosen.

Disasters are a part of either path taken. History will record those disasters. The only question will be how history records the solutions used and who will be given honor of those solutions. Will it be the people themselves who had faith in what they have or someone who decided to declare hope and change was needed?