Are You Ready?
Greetings, all. First off, I apologize for the delay in getting a post up this week. Having just returned from the UK and jumped immediately into extra hours of work and the sea of scholarship applications due soon, I have found my time isn’t entirely my own. But, sleep is overrated, and so I’m giving up a bit of it tonight to share some thoughts.
And actually, they’re not really my thoughts. They’re largely the thoughts of a wonderful group of state managers I have the pleasure and honor of working with a couple times per month. I got back from the UK right in time for September’s training session, and I’m rather glad (for some reasons, anyway) that I did.
One of the discussions today was “wicked problems,” or those major problems surrounding us– in our workplaces, in the world– that have no easy answers, that will “break more” before being fixed, and that must still be struggled with. It’s a depressing conversation. The group listed some of the “wicked problems” in our world that they could think of quickly. I list them for you here, with a few of mine added. Some are global, some are local… all are “wickedly” difficult to defeat.
– Racism
– Perception
– Lack of accountability
– War
– Fraud
– Climate
– Poverty
– Energy
– Population
– Sustainability
– Self-interest / selfishness (personal and political)
– Lost art of compromise
– Failing education system
– Lack of common sense
– AIDS crisis
– Healthcare / health system
– Diminished values
– Nationalism
– Food shortages overseas
– Violence through religion
– Oppression of woman
– Economy
– Child abuse
– Slavery (sex slavery, child labor)
– Fatalism/apathy
Like I said, it’s depressing. These are big issues, terribly difficult ones to even think about conquering. And what’s true is that you can probably think of several more big, scary issues that I didn’t list.
The point? Our world is horrifically, tragically broken.
My reason for making this point? We have a responsibility to do something about this brokenness. And we have the power.
In Christianity we’re all about being— not just doing. We’re not supposed to have new actions alone; we’re supposed to be a “new creation.” We’re not supposed to just tell others about God’s love. We’re supposed to be His love– His hands and feet– His catalyst for change. And with His Spirit living in us and controlling our actions and recreating our desires, we can be what God would have us be.
God loved this world and its broken people so much that He sent His Son to carry the weight of our brokenness for us and bring healing. And if God loves the world this much, and we are to love what He loves, perhaps we have a responsibility to also love and work toward healing. But not just to talk about fixing problems and creating transformation; to be it. As Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
And so suddenly that “depressing” list above becomes exciting as well as depressing. It is exciting because in the midst of all that broken mess, I am called to be a change, a transformation, a light. And I have the Spirit of the Sovereign God of the universe living in me ready to make it happen.
So, the question is (as a poet, though I cannot trace which one, has put it)– “What will you do with the world as you find it?”
We cannot any of us rescue the world entirely from any one of these massive problems. But we can each be a pebble that causes a ripple. And perhaps that ripple wll join another to become a wave.
I invite you to join me in finding a tangible, living answer to that question– “What will you do with the world as you find it?”
Oh, and by the way– if the world is really ending in 2012, we’d better get to work. 🙂
Contagious Passion 