Seemingly unrelated, but...

Went to see a movie yesterday. A cute one called "Cheaper By The Dozen." It's about this rural family that moves to the city and one of the rural kids gripes about being called in from playing to do her chores she says something like, "None of the kids who live in this neighborhood have chores, so why do we?" The suburban kids are portrayed as spoiled in most every possible way.

The story was on the nightly television news, and the Associated Press headline reads: "U.S. teens lead 14 industrialized nations in obesity, study says." Apparently, we're really good at having money and video games and fast food.

Then, when on to the editorial page there was a discussion about political candidates and how public they should be about their faith. A quote from one of the columnists: "If we do want politicians to talk plainly about God, we better be willing to delve deeply into our own faiths." The implication is that for political religious discussion to have deep meaning, we have to think deeply about those issues.

It's nothing new. Or even that innovative. I mean, Socrates talked about the same stuff before the birth of Christ.

But for some reason it appears that we're in one of those historical cycles where we're lazy physically and lazy spiritually...and it isn't simply the young. Apples tend to fall close to trees. Here's hoping we hear the alarm bells and that pendulum swings back quickly.