Building a Future

     Pain and anguish ooze from all my social and news media. This summer seems awash in violence. Every time I log into Facebook or email another madman has vented his spleen on innocents. Orlando, Minnesota, Baghdad, Istanbul, and Dallas; the list goes on and the toll climbs. I struggle to make some sort of sense of what I perceive as senseless, random violence. Refugees stream out of parts of Iraq and Syria, seeking some sort of sanity in a world where the powerful exert great influence over much of society and great swaths of territory. How does one respond?

     I must share in their grief. I cannot let physical and cultural distance dim my awareness of their plight or render their suffering irrelevant to my current condition. Those reeling under the thumb of the oppressor do not deserve such pain and anguish. They did nothing to warrant such treatment. Our good circumstance, mostly driven by birth and other factors beyond our ability to influence, does not make us more deserving of our present blessings. We so easily forget that God sends the rain on the just and the unjust alike; a very challenging passage (Matthew 5:44-46). We’ve done nothing to merit peace and well-being. So we must push back against those forces that would have us minimize their grief and pain due to their station in life. In some way, their grief is my grief, their pain mine as well, and their loss diminishes me. While we share in their anguish, we cannot let it overwhelm us.

     We must take action to improve our culture, locally and globally. Our decisions inexorably bend ourselves and our culture either toward peace and prosperity for all, or away from it. The day is long past when we must first clamor for our rights, defending our particular piece of political turf. We must adopt a wider view, one that puts the plight of others, near and far, first. We must push back against the deluge of violence, in all forms, that threatens to sweep us away. We bear responsibility for the culture we construct. We will build the world our children and grand-children will inherit. We must look and listen carefully to those who seek our support, financial or political. Those who gladly stoke the fires of anger and fear, seeking to create division do not deserve our support. Neither do those who seek to make a profit from pain or violence in any form. We must find ways to set aside those things on which we differ and come together on common ground.

     The things which bind us together are much greater than those on which we differ. Sadly we often focus on relatively minor variances, feeding our fear of “the other.” Let us look for those areas of commonality, those confluences of human thought and endeavor which all desire. Every father and mother longs for enough food and shelter for their children. They yearn for circumstances which enable their children to engage in education. The vast majority of men and women seek profitable employment that engages the body and soul. Most men seek remuneration that provides for their families and leaves enough free time for a modicum of rest and recreation. We yearn for the time and resources to explore and expand, feeding our spirit through the arts; whether in consumption or creation. These commonalities provide a road-map to the kind of culture we should create.

     Let us labor for conditions that provide those basics; food, shelter, worthwhile labor, adequate pay, and time to engage in those activities that profit the soul or spirit. The recent chaos should not drive us behind walls or gates. Ignored, the violence afar may come this way. We must reject the siren call of isolation that pulls us to our doom and instead embrace the suffering, rolling up our sleeves and bending to the task at hand. We must work, locally and globally, to create a society or culture and provides for the weakest among us. That is how we react to the seemingly random violence. Perhaps, it is not as random as we might wish. Perhaps, we ignored the warning signs too long and now the claxon sounds. But, heeded, it is not too late. The work may be hard and long, but the harvest of peace and prosperity will be worth the effort. To quote the Psalmist in Psalm 126: 5-6,

⁵ Those who sow in tears

    shall reap with shouts of joy!

⁶ He who goes out weeping,

    bearing the seed for sowing,

shall come home with shouts of joy,

    bringing his sheaves with him.

Let us now, in tears, plant the seeds that will bear goodly fruit in due course.