SIX DAYS ON THE ROAD

We are in our sixth day on the road of this new year and the media, once again, has taken charge of our lives. Our blood boils over politics, religion and sports figures whose lives are really none of our business. We worry over which TV network is telling the truth while we know all of them stretch and embellish any shred of truth in their stories. Their topics cannot be solved by us or them.

A dear, dear friend of mine once told me to imagine myself wrapped up in an electric blanket. (In this cold and snow that's a good thing to imagine right now.) He then said hand the thermostat controls to someone else and let them select the temperature setting for your comfort. Obviously they would not know if I needed it to be hotter or cooler so why would I give them the controls? Then he told me to take back those controls and adjust the temperature to suit myself.

We have handed our controls to journalists, preachers, talk show hosts and Internet stories. They gleefully adjust our temperature as we are left spinning in circles of fear and anger while nothing is being resolved.

We don't have to be recovering alcoholics to use the following prayer as a way to take back the controls of our lives:

"God, Give us the grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed, Courage
to change the things which should be changed,
And the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other."
(From "The Serentiy Prayer" by Elisabeth Sifton)