or at least the little chunk of it called the United States seems to be in a sad, sick, state these days. The news is full of wars, financial decline, leaders without capability, and people just trying to stay one step ahead of life. All the while cameras are taking it all in for our viewing pleasure, a world of device numbed voyeurs spending our existence in front of screens.

Only one message matters as we swim through a lifetime of spin. Christ is risen. It reminds of the truly important things. It proclaims the possibility of a different way of existing in the craziness. It says there is so much more than burning away the precious hours of life chasing whatever the screens tell us is right at the moment.

Christ is risen and eternity breaks into the mundane and transforms it. Our destiny to live and die in cubicles of our own making is exposed as a lie. Lesser dreams give way to larger and a truly revolutionary human emerges from beneath our skin. The reality of the risen Christ burns away the wood, hay, and stubble and leaves only that which truly matters. An empty tomb is the source of our heart’s fullness, the destruction of the temporary, and the revelation of the true. In a world of madness it, as improbable as the pundits would have it, is the only sanity that endures.

Now if we would only listen…

Just in case we get too wrapped up in our self importance here is a map of the US showing percentages of Orthodox Christians.

What ever our claims,  in the US we are actually the flea on the tip of the dog’s tail when it comes to numbers.