Do we want change or repentance?

Of course, we want change after 7 years of the Bush presidency. I still get in arguments with people about George Bush's leadership immediately after 9/11. I think he was extraordinary, while friends attack him with a Michael Moore spirit. He was down to earth, sincerly compassionate,grieving and angry.

Unfortunately, catastrophically, he took his anger and the anger of the nation and launched a crusade, a holy war against terror. He decided that it would be handy to have an enemy taht was both focused and diffuse. You can justify all sorts of policies based on our battle against terrorism. What does the word mean though?

Did you ever wonder about those thirty Afghanis who gathered for a wedding celebration several years ago and then were killed by a smart bomb because the US thougth they were Taliban. Is that terror? Is terrorism something that only we and maybe the British can be victims of. When bombs rained down on the people of Baghdad, we called it`shock and awe.' Yes, we don't deliberately target civilians, but do those Afghanis know that?

I wonder too in our real struggle agaisnt the evils of terror tactics, will we remember our use of those tactics and repent. When our government supported the death squads in El Salvador and Guatemala, were we not supporting terror. When the CIA sponsored Contras killed teachers and health care workers in rural Nicaragua, what should we call that. It certainly was a war agaisnt civilians as well as against armed forces.

Anyway, I admired George Bush in those early painful days after 9/11 and believe that the Afghan invasion made sense. Then disaster,evil, the arrogance of power, the use of the presidency to deceive and destroy in Iraq, the trashing of America's image and reputation. He even publicly used the word `crusade', stirring images of us holy Christians battling the evil Muslims.

So please check out the inspiring Obama video at www.yeswecansong.com

We need change in our international and domestic polciy to try to get off the disastrous course that Bush and company have led us on. Hopefully, Americans will continue to awaken to the urgency of the strugle agaisnt the many corruptions of the Bush years. But this word change is a slippery.

For Christians, the season of Lent begins with Ash Wednesday. Yes, a lot of Presbyterians now impose ashes for those who want to receive them. One of the persistent themes of the Ash Wednesday service is repentance. Repentance is also about change--but it is change that starts with self knowledge and self examination and leds into turning around, living life differentlly, experiencing a transformation of values. Living in the mystery of God in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, I repent of my selfishness,my stupidities, my indifference, my laziness--and I dedicate myself to living a new life with new values and priorities. So, here is the rub. We hear a lot about change. But almsot nothing about repentance.

All too often change means that we hope we can get someone else to pay for our lunch. Remember under Reagan we had the tax simplificaiton act. After passage of the act, the tax code was just as complicated. There were fewer brackets, but the wealthiest Americans got a huge tax cut. `Change the tax systme--fix the IRS--make it fairer--cut taxes.' It is mostly all a smokescreen for shifting the tax burden away from one group, usually higher income tax payers, to another. Look at the scandal of this government eliminating the estate tax which is paid by only the wealthyest 1% of estates at the time of someone's death. Eliminating that tax shifts a burden of $30 billion to the rest of us.

Yes, we all want change. But beneath that slogan lurks the danger. We much prefer that others change. Let them sacrifice. Let's put our heads together and figure out how we can get others to pay for our lunch.

The yeswecansong is fun and inspiring,like the candidate that it hilites. But real change means sacrifice and repentance and renewal and rebuilding people and systems. Real change means empower people, groups and movements to demand justice and to build justice. For Christians real change is rooted in the encounters of Ash Wednesday.