discontent

Sitting in rubble, like after a tsunami wiped everything we built.

As I talk and engage friends and people, both physically and virtually, I get the impression that many feel this way.

Disillusioned.

As if we as a people are waking up from a deep sleep and as we wipe our eyes we see what we thought was real and good and beautiful is a heap of rubble.

A mess.

Christians challenge Christianity.

Humanists question democracy.

Capitalists complain about consumerism.

So many people are discontented & they verbalize their discontent in describing the unacceptability of what is.

I suppose that would be the first thing to do. To admit this is not good enough. Or at least, this is not what we wanted. This is not what we hoped for.

What we cannot forget – what we have now is not the product of our own efforts. It has been constructed by previous generations. Many previous generations, as far back as the start of the common era and even pre-common era people. And whatever we construct and de-construct, coming generations will be saddled with it.

I’m reading Pagan Christianity in which Barna & Viola tracks the cultural becoming of post-modern day Christianity, showing historical influences from the days of the early Church, through the 300’s, the enlightenment & the reformation & recent industrial revolution.

If anything, as I’m reading, I’m reminded that what we do (or do not do) ‘today’ will affect ‘tomorrow’ and the day after that.

Perhaps this is why we are paralyzed by our discontent?

Fear, more than discontent, motivating us.

Too afraid to try and find an ‘answer’ as ‘answers’ of the past seems to not have been answers at all.

As we’re stuck in time, ‘the future’ cannot be our point of reference. We only know today & yesterday. We only know what we’ve experienced individually and collectively.

Or perhaps (at least in an increasingly westernized world) we only know what we now experience individually, although that is part of the illusion as mass-media & mass-communication provide us with a collective experience and reveal a collective state of being.

Who will be brave enough to move past the discontent?

Who will be able to ‘hope’, despite the fear, for a ‘better’ tomorrow as Plato and Marx and Darwin and Luther and Zwingli and King and Mandela hoped?

Who will be bold enough to act on this hope amidst the discontent?

Not responsive.

Not in answer to what is not acceptable, but in answer to what is hoped for.

My friend The Faithful Sceptic poignantly pointed out that when we ‘respond’, what we create is often determined by and seeded by what is responded too and therefore a product of what we responded too.

Who will be brave enough & innovative enough to act on ‘hope’ unrelated to discontent, willing to risk future discontent?

Perhaps if we start talking about what we want, instead of what we do not want – perhaps then we’ll move towards becoming something new instead of re-building & renovating something we’re disillusioned with?

So religion disappoints – let’s talk about what we desire instead of what it should not be.

So democracy fails, its lies unmasking its self – let’s talk about how we would like to live instead of how we do not want to live.

So capitalism & its child consumerism has us tired – let’s talk about a new way of being & sharing & meeting.

I’m just saying, I’ve had enough of discontent.

I’m ready for hope.

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