Stock Markets and Stray Dogs

That' it. It's official. The stock market is like a stray dog at a whistler's convention. Someone whistles in China and off goes the dog. Then someone whistles down at the Gulf Coast about a leaky well and the dog's head jerks in the other direction and it runs toward what must surely be the beckoning of yet another "master."

Then for a while "man's best friend" sits obediently at the feet of the latest one to call, but then there comes yet another whistle from some far corner and since the poor thing does not really have an owner off it goes on another chase. It is no way to live life.

I went to the Y the other day to "work out" and there on the screen were the talking heads and the ticker running at the bottom of the screen with those little colored "arrowheads" pointing both up and down. To look at the screen was to counteract any effort I was putting forth to "stay healthy." From the corner of the room I think I heard someone whistle because some of the arrows changed direction and color.

The word "faith" has more to do with trust than it does belief. Faith is not really opinions about something but rather reliance on something. It is hard to trust a stray dog who does not know who its master is.

A wise man once said, "No one can serve two masters...you will end up loving the one and hating the other." It is not that the stock market and all it represents is bad but I'll tell you it makes a "hell-of-a-master." But then according to the old wisdom it is not supposed to be a master.

So I have to again decide in what do I "trust?" Trust has to do with what you lean on. My mother used to love the old hymn "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms." I'm learning why she liked it. In our high-tech world of instant communications where whistles can be heard from far too many places in rapid fire succession maybe we need these old words from some music that should be sung and not whistled:

"What have I to dread, what have I to fear
Leaning on the everlasting arms
I have blessed peace with my Lord so near
Leaning on the everlasting arms
...O what peace is mine....leaning on the everlasting arms."

Bless you
jody