The Heavy Responsibility of Being Human In our Heaving World as It Is.
Instead of looking for others to blame for the way things are (religion, politics, corporations, terrorists, warmongers, etc.) what if we looked within, owning our obligations to one another.
The myth of progress is pernicious. While certainly there are definitely experiences of what we call “progress” it’s hard to look around the heaving world and see how we humans are more humane to each other on a global scale.
The problem with this myth is that it seems to only work for a very few, and even that is questionable. Or one has to zoom out to the “big picture” of humanity, which seems to dehumanize the ordinary folks on the ground.
Is it pessimistic to say there will always be violence and wars, corruption and abuse? Or just realistic.
If we presume that the world should be better by now, that it always “ought” to have been better than it is now, then we’ll always be looking around for someone to blame for ruining “it”.
Despair seems to be prevailing these days more than ever.
Being a Protestant Christian minister in the YMCA now for over eight years, (ordained in my conservative evangelical Protestant Christian denomination for almost 25 years), and being connected to Y’s around the USA and the world, learning about the mission and history of our movement, and how we end up in some of the darkest moments of the past 185 years, makes me hopeful.
In praying for my fellow YMCA colleagues in the Holy Land, there is NO illusion that their Christian presence and sacrificial leadership will convince the military leaders to stop pressing the red buttons that launch all the missiles. The hospitality and healing ministry of the Y in the West Bank, West Jerusalem and Galilee is like grains of sand and salt in a sea of vociferous envy, jealousy, greed, lust and rivalry.
So why keep going against those odds?
If women and men joined the YMCA in order to “end” a crisis of humanity, we would go bankrupt morally and socially. It’s not possible.
George Williams and his eleven young Christian friends did not start the Y to end loneliness, to end cruel labor practices in the factories of 1844 London, nor to put a stop to the taverns and brothels that were ruining the souls of the young men coming from the farms to work in the city.
They started the Y for a few different reasons: they felt compelled - one could say “called” - to make a difference in the souls of the young men they saw trapped in despairing darkness; they were motivated by love for their fellow man; they prayed for many days to God, searching for direction on how to care for those they saw struggling; their own lives had been transformed by the healing grace of Christ Jesus and they wanted to share that experience with the men in their lives.
There can be an expectation of the YMCA, or non-profits, or religious institutions, or even NGO’s and somehow of corporations to operate in such a way that they “end” some crises in humanity. It will never happen. Humans will always be humans.
So what kind of responsibility do we have as humans in the YMCA, in churches and schools, in any other kind of civic or corporate or governmental organization to make the world a better place?
Maybe instead of trying to improve the “world” we could focus instead on actually taking personal responsibility for our own life and how we show up to the real individuals we are with every day. The upside of this is that we avoid making our “neighbor” an abstract idea - we learn to love the very real (sometimes annoying, sometimes wonderful) people in our everyday ordinary (sometimes boring, sometimes exciting) days.
We ought to despair over the cruelties of war and terrorism and famine and natural disasters. It is heartbreaking. And they are unstoppable. Because of humanity. But humanity is not a problem to be solved. That makes each of us an abstract “challenge” to which some policy-wonk or non-profit do-gooder will come up with a “solution” to fix us.
“The situation” in the Holy Land, which has taken on personal implications because of my friends serving in the YMCA there, has highlighted the absurdity of the human problem, how humans can create the most complex problems of almost unsolvable predicaments. With dire and deadly consequences for us all. What can I or we do about it?
One: don’t make religion the scapegoat. It’s popular to do so. Close your eyes and throw a dart at an academic writer reinforcing the common refrain that religion causes violence. We can keep beating that drum if we want, but it will march us down a dead-end path. ( see William Cavanaugh, Rene Girard, Charles Taylor)
Two: don’t make politics our savior. Democracy is hard work, flawed, and always threatened to unravel; the alternatives of anarchy, oligarchy, autocracy and civil war are always looming.
Three: for-profit and not-for-profit organizations are crucial for the flourishing of a community, and they can also be rapacious and inhuman in how they operate and perpetuate crises for their “financial viability.”
This seems exhausting. Taking responsibility for your own life, for being human in this world as it really is can be a drain.
If you are religious, we can be tempted to pray to God to “fix” our world, but that’s not how it works. If you are political, we can be tempted to “elect” the right people to “fix” our problems, but we all know how that works. If you are a leader, we can be tempted that more efficiency and control will guarantee improved outcomes for all, but then humans get in the way of meeting the corporate goals and objectives on time.
And yet, this is our life. If you don’t take responsibility for your life, and own your responsibility to the people around you, you’ll miss out on this one life.
We all respect local neighbors who leave their community better than how they found it, often through the consistent efforts of caring and serving without seeking any kind of award. Just imagine that on a scaled level. Not to bring a utopia. But as a kind of defiant way of life to the real despair that can settle on a heart, convincing us that because there is no utopia there is no use to loving those around you.
We don’t love in order to fix, but love can heal. Not permanently, but then that becomes an invitation to keep loving, caring and serving.
We can either wish to escape this world, or “make it better” or we can choose to be responsible with the gifts we’ve been given and the times we live in and with those around us, participate fully in the heaving world as it really is.
For those that sense a call to serve and lead amidst the terrifying reality of our world, we will find solidarity with other like-minded souls, we will find a way to connect, rejoicing together, mourning together, participating as ones fully alive, come what may.
For all the souls that have been crushed by the machines of “progress” and “efficiency” and “reform” and “security” - may we hear their cry for mercy, may we really listen, may it resonate in our own souls. And may it sustain us in our calling to take responsibility for our life, to be responsible to those in our midst, and never give up on mercy.
This is a personal reflection, based on my leadership and faith journey, currently intertwined with the YMCA, seeking to make sense of these times, and how to take responsibility for my life amidst the real world. In the way of Jesus.