WHAT REALLY MATTERS

Have you noticed it too?

We live in a world that bombards us with information - images, noise, logos, celebrities, pundits, graphics, jingles, on and on and on.

And yet, it feels empty.

Over the past few months, we have been treated to the usual sports coverage of the election process by prating fools who cover polls and percentages more than the real choices facing us.

Over the next few months, we will be treated to show trials from Guantanamo, leading to death penalties just before election day, just as Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death three days before the last national election.

And in the meantime, our national leaders send our jobs and especially our children's jobs overseas, as our industrial base is modernized and rebuilt on foreign shores. And in the meantime, the nuclear arms race is being rekindled as our country pursues billion dollar boondoggles to pour federal dollars into the pockets of defense contractors. And in the meantime, any realistic plans to seek energy independence and respond to global warming threats are thwarted by cynical oil company connections within the government. And in the meantime, our American ideals and heritage - freedom, human dignity, government of the people, by the people, and for the people - are being savaged by the intellectual heirs of Jefferson Davis and Nathan Bedford Forrest.

And yet, our media still finds time for OJ and Britney and Paris and, still, once in a while, poor Princess Di.

What really matters anyway?

What matters to me is that we humans could make this world a better place to live if we all agreed to seek peace through justice, and prosperity through fairness. Sadly, there are predators among us who seek power by intimidation and violence, and wealth by conquest and theft.

It may be that the decent among us will ultimately prevail; that the meek will truly inherit the earth. Or it may be that the sky is darkening and the future we are about to experience will be fearsome indeed.

Perhaps it would help if those of us who care about peace and justice and decency and honor decided to focus our thoughts on finding a hopeful vision for the future, and to join forces in moving towards this dream. Whether we succeed or fail, it might make our brief journey through this life a little brighter, and in some small ways the world that we live in a better place. It might make the time we spend on this earth worthwhile.

And isn't that what really matters?