Awakening from our slumber
One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding someone to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it’s remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver’s license.
The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.
All around us are opportunities to make a difference. Life constantly sends forth a barrage of wake-up calls~the hungry child, the neighbor with cancer, the polluted air, the dying Fraser firs, even the litter on our streets and sidewalks.
Why then are so many of us reluctant to really get involved? Do we spend so much time chasing the almighty dollar that we can’t find the time? Are our senses dulled from the overstimulation of television and the Internet? Or have we just gone to sleep? Perhaps one of the following stances sounds familiar.
“The small amount I’m able to do won’t really make much of a difference.”
“All of our problems seem so huge and complicated. I’d better just let the experts deal with them.”
“If the (choose one—liberals, conservatives, corporations, unions, ecologists, foresters, etc.) would just disappear everything would be OK.”
If you hold any of these positions (or a similar one), welcome to the world of victimhood. And you’re not alone. Many of us walk around in a trance-like state, believing that this is just the way things are—that’s the way I am, that’s the way others are, that’s the way life is—without considering that there are many more possibilities just slightly beneath the veil of our consciousness.
I believe it’s time to heed the wake-up calls, to become accountable, to take action, to reclaim our rights as citizens, and to recreate a true participatory democracy, the one that our Founding Fathers envisioned. I believe that each of us has the power to make a difference, that there is a better way, that there is something that each of us can do about the dilemmas that confront us today.
Our lives as individuals and as members of our community are our responsibility, not our elected officials’, not the experts’, not our religious leaders’, not anyone else’s. We are responsible—each one of us. You know what is best for you, and you are sanctioned to make choices and to take action—not because you are an expert or a skilled politician, but because you are a citizen of the United States of America. Nothing more is required.
I sense a quiet revolution going on, just below the radar of the national media. We are awakening from our slumber and standing up for what we believe in. We are taking responsibility for our lives. We are becoming accountable. Some of us notice the litter on our streets and highways and stop to clean it up. Some of us build playgrounds so that our children have safe places to play. Some of us volunteer to help provide food and shelter for mothers and children who have fled abusive situations. Some of us find our calling in the preservation of the wilderness. Some of us work to find ways to celebrate our diversity, not just tolerate it. Some of us meet in churches, synagogues, mosques, and other sanctuaries to nurture our spirituality, to pray for those in need, and then to put those prayers into action.
I sense the tide is turning. I sense that change is in the air. Someday soon, I believe our children will truly become our top priority. Someday soon, I believe our Berlin Wall will come down. And someday soon, I believe we’ll choose leaders with the moral authority and courage of Nelson Mandela to lead us in an American renaissance of compassion, justice, equality, and sustainability.
Saturday, March 4th, 2000No Comments »
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