Alas, Alas...

When you wake to a Slate headline that reads:

Republicans Keep Going Lower. How Long Can Democrats Afford to Stay High?

and you think "high" is pretty relative...just above the low"

Alas...alas...

When the second sentence in the article reads, "...the game Republicans are forcing everyone to play insists morality is for losers."

Alas...alas...

When a Democrat claim about private jets getting a tax break in the new tax bill gets four Pinnochios.

Alas...alas...

When children born to lower income families can no longer get their insurance because it was allowed to lapse at the government level, and we can spend a trillion dollars we don't have on a tax cut but can't "afford" to reinstate the insurance for children...

Alas...alas

Amos brings a different word today:

Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, just as you have said. Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord: in all the squares there shall be wailing; and in all the streets they shall say, "Alas! alas!" They shall call the farmers to mourning, and those skilled in lamentation, to wailing; in all the vineyards there shall be wailing, for I will pass through the midst of you, says the Lord.

At some point does it truly become easier to seek evil, to do injustice for the reward that seems to come quickly and easily, to follow self-interest? It is hard to seek good and establish justice...at every turn that practice seems to elicit cries of alas...alas...

But the promise is--the call to wailing, mourning will enable the presence of the Lord.

Advent...looking for the promised salvation.

Looking hard...through the tears.