The world feels like it is ending.
I must remember that the world has ended before. Rome fell. Mayan rule came to an end. Even Jesus died.
How did the people who lived through those times feel? What advice would they give me? I imagine it must be something like, “The world is not ending, only changing. It is up to us to help it change into something better.”
In the last few months, we’ve had a pandemic that has killed 100,000 people and counting. We have people who refuse to believe those deaths and refuse to protect others from sickness. We have had mass shootings, multiple murders of African American citizens by police and other citizens, a war on the truth, and a president who is more interested in keeping power than empathy.
Right now, Minneapolis is burning in riots because police met their protests with violence when protestors armed with guns and threats were met with peaceful protection.
Right now, the president is trying to “protect free speech” by regulating news and social media. Right now, the leader of America is advocating the use of violence against the looters. Right now, my own mother calls me quoting this leader “interpreting” his words.
I’m at a loss.
I wonder if I should care less. I wonder if I should at least be less outspoken about it. I wonder if I am hurting my chances with future employers by standing for what I believe in. I wonder if my words even matter or am I just another voice lost in the screams of nonsense.
But if I refuse to stand for what I believe, who am I? If I stay silent, how am I better than the police officers who listened to George Floyd beg for his life, struggling to breathe, and did nothing?
The world we live in is not a good one.
It is not good for people in power to hurt those under it. It is not good for people to feel so powerless in their own story they must threaten, destroy, and kill to be heard. It is not good for a leader to want to silence any voices.
But I believe that individuals can be good.
People can have compassion and love, empathy and forgiveness. Just because the system we live in is wrong and destructive doesn’t mean it is filled with people like that.
The Israelites thought the Messiah would come as a king, riding into battle to free them. Jesus came as a teacher to free them, not from the Roman system, but from their own system. He preached kindness and compassion to a system that called for revenge and rules mattering more than people’s lives. He preached revolution to a law that demanded conformity. He created a new way. A better system.
Perhaps it’s time we let the world end. Aren’t we so tired of dealing with this world anyway? What if we took all our energy put towards frustration, rage, and despair about our current system and put it into making a new, better system?
What if we revolted against ourselves?
I don’t know if the world will end, but I do know the world that I want to wake up in 1, 5, 10 years from now looks different than this one. Let us put aside our biases and ideas and agree that we should care about others. Let’s agree that if someone at our table doesn’t have food, we will go get it for them.
Let us step into a new world where hate is untolerable and compassion and empathy are mandatory.