It feels as if the entire world is on the edge of burning. We have walked, nearly in lock step, to this point. As a world, we are racing, full speed, towards destruction and an uninhabitable planet. The question is, is there any way to put the fires out?
There are the fires of Nature, and the fires of war, and the fires we are setting non-stop. The fires of hatred. The fires of pollution. The fires of ignorance. The fires of inequality. The fires of hopelessness. It is going to take the entire world to put them out, but it seems as though at least half of humanity are pyromaniacs. We cannot turn away from the reality of Ukraine. We may want so much to avoid this conflict, but unfortunately it touches the entire world, and I am extremely concerned for everyone, especially now that Putin has started seizing nuclear power plants at gunpoint, and indiscriminately bombing civilians in the Ukranian cities. We are being forced as a world to deal with a situation that is truly out of control. It’s hard to witness, but in the name of humanity we have to deal with Putin and stop the destruction, I hope with detente.
We hold up an entity that we have never seen, and call our actions “just, in the name of God”. We may well have a God, or Gods, but that is no justification for the destruction we rain on each other day and night. Our own nation has used the name of “God” as a weapon not to “love thy neighbor” but to “kill thy neighbor”. A perversion of what the Bible actually says. We are not “worshipping” we are defying the very words we say we believe in. I say we, because I believe in a Creator. But I do not believe in humankind as a spokes piece for that Creator.
It is an abdication of personal responsibility to just say words, and the name of God, in personal vanity. We have so much hope, but so little action to bring that hope to life. We can change that! We have green energy, but we also have bottomless greed, and it’s not just Putin. If the oil companies started today to turn to green energy, the face of the world could change in mere years, maybe 2 decades. But it takes the desire and will to just say “no” to dirty energy.
We here in America are the energy pigs of the world. And we are a BIG part of the problem. We have endless power at our disposal with the flip of a switch, and that is a problem. WE also have given that power to energy companies, the power of life and death at the flip or failure of a switch. Look at Texas where 200 people froze to death because the power company failed them, although they had plenty of warning. And then after that failure, they robbed the people they failed and it’s actually “legal”. We have perverted the justice system in this nation. I won’t even try to address the rest of the world about that. I want to focus on us. We have far more power to change things that we think. We have the power to say “no”. To stop buying gas for a week or a day. To lower prices of goods and services.
It’s easy to be isolated in our own little world, to view each day through our own lens, but by focusing solely on our immediate family, we are enabling the suffering of other families. Here in America, we have a homelessness problem that is growing like wildfire. Home insecurity looms over millions as rentals are fewer and fewer and prices are higher and higher. Food insecurity is rampant. We have the power to make our own government tackle this problem, not with wishy washy words, but with subsidies and rent control. Many Americans have a wonderful life, but many, many do not.
I know there are many people, and many agencies who work very hard to change these things, to you I say, “thank you”, keep doing what you do because you are the hope of the world. You don’t use nice cheap words, you act with altruism, and that is what our world needs to change for the better. We have a major problem to deal with and that is hubris. We cannot fall into that trap. We have a lot of work to do to lift this world and this nation and we can’t waste a moment, we really can’t.
So, let’s do some simple things every day to make a change. Volunteer anywhere you can make a difference in a life, human or animal, or the planet. Donate blood or money, or your unused items to local thrift stores. Pay attention to energy consumption. Turn off lights when you don’t need them. Carpool together whenever possible. Reuse your Ziploc bags. You can wash your Ziploc bags in the washing machine with hot water and detergent and they will last a long time. Use your recycling services. Decide not to fly or drive and do video chats instead. You don’t have to do something just because you can. We need some self-restraint, and that includes me. I am consciously choosing greener things, like laundry detergent made from plants which is amazingly effective by the way. If we all do something, we can change everything. We do have hope, but it has to come from our actions and not from God. It’s a “hands off” Creator. What we have is “free will”. It is up to humanity to rescue humanity. Prayer without action is useless, we have to do more. It is up to us.