The uniqueness of Mary's pregnancy contributes to the uniqueness of the baby born. He is presented as both truly God and truly Man. Such a thing is naturally impossible and cannot be proven. Therefore it requires faith in God who can do impossible things, like creating the world out of nothing. Siegfried Sassoon has a poem entitled, The Unproven.

But how much can a person change? When you pray for people to change, you believe that God can do what seems to be impossible. Nevertheless, patterns of attitude and behavior are so ingrained that change seems to be unlikely. The tree that does not produce good fruit is more likely to be cut down and thrown into the fire than produce fruit in keeping with repentance. Jeremiah prophesied of the people in his day, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots?

The book of Ecclesiastes describes the search for satisfaction. You can have money, possessions, lovers, success in life and still be dissatisfied. Happiness does not come through acquisition. Wealth does not equal satisfaction or contentment.

At least that is the theory. But what happens if we, as voters, want to use the company credit to enrich ourselves with stock options, and increased dividends, and we reward our representatives for voting us these benefits? We re-elect those representatives who will give us what we want even if the company isn't turning a profit, or can pay for the benefits we are receiving. In other words, we are depreciating our capital and assets, at the expense of the future.