I'm not going to jump into the partisan camps battling over who is responsible for the British Petroleum off-shore oil well leak and spill in the Gulf of Mexico. I'm just among those who are stunned over the amount of time it's taking for BP, the EPA, the White House or someone get on a fast-track to stop it and get it cleaned up. We keep hearing how complicated it all is. Most things are. Someone on a radio program observed how the Apollo 13 crew was rescued in their aborted moon landing attempt. Mission control personnel in Houston had precious little time and limited resources to engineer a make-shift air-filtration system, make sure it worked, and communicate the instructions to the crew in space. Taking their time was not an option, nor was failure. Yet a multi-billion dollar industry can't find a way to plug a hole in the bottom of the Gulf.

I noted this discrepancy to my wife. Wise woman that she is, she suggested the difference. NASA personnel in Houston had a personal investment in bringing Apollo 13 home. They knew the crew members. They felt themselves to be an extension of the mission. They experienced a sense of urgency that put all other agenda on the back burner. Unless you're in the shrimping or fishing or tourism industries on the Gulf coast, or you live on the Gulf coast, there doesn't seem to be too much of a sense of urgency. BP seems to see this as a public relations urgency, more than an environmental crisis. They can count on America's continuing glutinous addiction to non-renewable fossil fuel. (In three decades computers have gone from bulky expensive items to things you can hold in the palm of your hand. In a century the technology of the petroleum based internal combustion engine has barely budged.) BP is still making in profit nearly three times more than they're spending on the spill. There's no urgency or personal connection.

The core of the faith to which I adhere demands urgency and personal investment of followers. We are to see people as creatures who urgently need to meet a God who loves them enough to die for them. If we fail to act with urgency, passion, and compassion we fail the very mission of our movement itself. We are to be like the Houston crew.

I'll see you around the next bend in the river.