i've been listening to news radio a lot more lately. i'm finding the old adage to be true: no news is good news. of course, i'm finding this by way of inverse, as the string of heartbreaking stories aired every hour on the hour is one without an apparent end. in five minutes, my heart gets pulled from plane crash victims in buffalo to marketplace bombing casualties in egypt to emotionally traumatized soldiers in iraq. and then to the hundreds of politicians, ngo's, writers, economists, and social theorists offering solutions without any promise of success. even obama doesn't know if we can, after all, solve our economic problems.

this isn't me complaining. it's just a tough world to live in. and that's easy for my upper-middle class self to say. at the risk of sounding like a sign-carrying doomsday prophet, it makes me feel all the more sure that we weren't meant to solve all of our problems, that this world just wasn't meant to last.

i saw an ant crawling across the bathroom floor today. watching it amble aimlessly - left then right, right then left, forward, backwards, now retracing its steps, now standing still - i thought what a worry-free life this ant must lead. she doesn't listen to the radio. she doesn't pay taxes or vote on wars or make plans for international travel. what news could she hear that would disturb her peaceful meanderings?

but then the thought occurred to me that the ant was not at peace at all. in fact, her brain is probably too tiny to even allow her to comprehend such a notion as peace, or any notion at all, save hunger. hunger, pain, danger. this is the ant's entire world, the whole of her inner life. i blew on the ground near her head. she turned the other direction, not out of whimsy but out of instinctive fear. there is no rest for the ant. her instinct won't let her stop. of course, that made me think that we weren't so unalike after all.

tonight, i watched a victorious mixed martial arts fighter declare to the world on the other end of the television camera that Jesus was his Lord and Savior. moments later, the referee lifted the fighter's bloody, sweaty fist in the air, and the stadium roared. i'm not sure what to make of that. is that all Jesus is good for?