IT'S PARTLY THE times and partly my own overthinking, but lately my mind keeps going toward the ways it could all fall apart. American democracy feels fragile, like a teacup on a saucer that’s partly hanging over the table’s edge. And companies and governments, though fully aware of what they’re doing, continue to tug voraciously at the threads that hold our ecosystems together, permitting more pipelines and drilling and business as usual.
Some have called our current era “the dying gasps” of late capitalism. The bubble of exponential economic growth, powered by the extraction of millions of years of decayed organic matter stored as carbon-rich fuel beneath the ground, can’t last forever. Neither can our living beyond the Earth’s means, though the endless options on e-commerce sites suggest otherwise.
It is too easy to surround myself with shiny new things to ease the sense that the world as we know it is ending, to buffer my sense of self with what feels familiar and safe. But then I wouldn’t be awake to what is being birthed in the wake of the dying colonial project. As much as it’s terrifying and full of risks, I want to get my hands dirty in the collective creation of a better world.
As an icebreaker, I sometimes ask others, “What historical era and place would you prefer to live in?” My yearning always goes to Native North American communities, centuries before the Europeans came. To know you are embedded in a tribe and in a broader community of creatures and live as such seems like sweet relief from our current state of alienation.
Yet a voice, which I believe to be the Spirit, whispers, “You were born for such a time as this.” Similar words were spoken to Esther in the Hebrew Bible, suggesting that her appointment to queen at the time of King Xerxes was divine intervention to save the Jewish people in Persia from massacre.
I’m no Esther. But inasmuch as we believe in God’s purpose for each living being, that our every breath is sustained by the goodness and love at the center of the universe, then we too can trust in our unique callings in these turbulent times.
It means that though I learn from the wisdom of past generations and grieve all that we are losing today, I also draw strength in knowing that there is work to do. I am here — and you are here — to be part of a worldwide transition. Activist Joanna Macy calls it the Great Turning: a transformation on all levels, from structural to personal, from death-dealing to live-giving ways.
Call it the kingdom or kin-dom of God. Call it the Beloved Community. Here, in the middle of the crucial decade to steer the planet away from climate apocalypse, months before another absurd yet pivotal presidential election, I roll up my sleeves and face the headwinds. Join me. We were made for this.
Liuan Huska is a freelance journalist and the author of Hurting Yet Whole: Reconciling Body and Spirit in Chronic Pain and Illness.
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