« Reality vs. sensationalism | Home | No clean slate »
Forgiven shambles
April 17, 2017
Lately I’ve been feeling like humanity is going to destroy ourselves either quickly by blowing ourselves up because of some pointless conflict, or exhaust our planet slightly more slowly by not taking known problems seriously. Perhaps the urgency of my angst is due to now having a child.
Turns out our generation has been blessed to have the opportunity to grow up in one of the safest and most peaceful times in human history. World Wars over, cold war ending, globalization and easy international travel. Safe to travel in most of the world. Some wars and conflicts here and there, but honestly not much to complain about between 1970-2000, a major blip after that, but honestly also pretty awesome from 2002-2016. Some conflicts, but so remote from ourselves that it was easy to brush off.
But it’s been degrading. The rich are richer, everyone else is poorer. Power concentrating in the hands of a few. Xenophobia. Terrorism. Seemingly random attacks on places that we have grown up accepting as safe. And now I’m starting to see how tenuous our peace is. How stupid reasons could tip us so quickly into the abyss. Don’t take me wrong, I think there is way more good in the world than evil. The way I see it though, is that the good guys by and large don’t make it into places of power. It’s hard to get there, and it’s much easier to lie and cheat your way there. So greed for power, greed for wealth, pride… these characteristics win out. You end up with people in charge who don’t actually care about the people they’re in charge of. Only insomuch as their vote or momentary support when it matters. Other than that, who cares, as long as there is more power now. More money now. More pride now. During this election cycle, because the next is someone else’s problem. Truth doesn’t matter. Values don’t matter. Choices don’t end up being made that are actually better for anyone in the long run.
Because of humanity’s inability to come together to do what is right for humanity, I worry about our future. And perhaps have the least practice in how to deal with it compared to generations past.
In the season of Easter we celebrate our forgiven sins. Perhaps Jesus did come and forgive us. That’s great, thanks. But we’ll still go ahead and make a mess of everything. A pile of forgiven shambles.
Comments: