Have you noticed that some words fairly drip with meaning? Even the sounds of these words help convey their meaning. You know the kind I mean. Words like: snap, boom, sizzle, (or fizzle) – words like expunge, lunge, whack and whirl. Interesting, you might say, but not very significant. Yet words do have an impact.

Have you noticed that despite the incredibly high divorce rate in our western society, despite all the turmoil and challenge of the dating process, marriage itself remains very popular today? Many books, television shows and movies deal with the ideal goal of finding a "soul mate"—an intimate, long-term, committed companion in life. People will seemingly try anything in the attempt to find someone they can truly share their life with for the long term. Why is this?

Whom can we trust to tell us the truth? Advertisers want us to believe that their latest model automobile will make us powerful and popular, or that their "new and improved" grooming product will win us a whole new circle of friends. Political parties try to "sell" their candidates, and confused religious teachers offer a bewildering spectrum of contradictory promises and wild ideas.

These days, it seems it is "every man for himself." Every woman, too. Our society has fractured into innumerable special interest groups seeking advantage for their constituencies. As America's "ship of state" sinks under ever-worsening economic conditions, conservatives and liberals are clawing for space aboard the shrinking number of lifeboats, hoping to survive the storm-tossed waves of fiscal and social disaster. Selfish interest and party spirit will bring the United States—and the other Western democracies—to ruin, unless citizens can recapture the standards that once upheld their nations, and can begin looking to God rather than to politicians for the answers. "You shall not at all do as we are doing here today—every man doing whatever is right in his own eyes" (Deuteronomy 12:8).

The people of Ireland have voted "No" on the proposed Lisbon Treaty, which would have enforced a new degree of supranational unity on the European Union nations.