So, just when will Americans see that our current administration really is lying, spinning and moving with great speed toward a very different America than the one that we profess to love? I'm talking about the America whose freedoms and civil rights we've so taken for granted that they appear unchanging or unchangeable? Well, things are changing daily, incrementally and if we do not tune in for a day, we miss witnessing one more affront, one more assault on the values and liberties we've been born and bred to believe are unassailable. I 'm scared. What is it that blinds so many of us? Is it the malls where we can lose ourselves in background music and goods made in Third World countries, professional sports ("Give them bread and circuses."), the illusion of power given us with SUVs, Hummers and snow mobiles, cell phones, Palm Pilots and pagers or the day to day struggle and overwork that leave no time for civic engagement? Please link to:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/30/opinion/30KRUG.html

On Sunday I heard a sermon given by the pastor of the Seattle First Baptist Church. He read an email he'd received from a soldier in Iraq. The soldier wrote that he and his buddies listened to the pastor's sermons and the choir by logging on to the church's website at

http://www.seattlefirstbaptist.org/Default.asp?Header=%26nbsp%3B%26nbsp%3BSermons&Locator=Sermons

It's not often that I feel bursts of patriotism, but the words of this lone soldier coupled with what I know about this particular congregation offered me that rare opportunity. Seattle First Baptist has been picketed by conservative Baptists for its stand on equal rights for gays and lesbians. Seattle First Baptist is not crazy about Bush or the Iraq War and its members are willing to talk about it all. The congregation does not waver. It just keeps doing the right thing.

So the fact that this soldier in Iraq took comfort in the pastor's sermons and apparently has logged on more than once seems a very good sign. Wasn't the war turned into a vehicle to 'free the Iraqi people'? And freeing people should mean freeing them - and all of us - to be how we really are and all we can be.

Merry Christmas.