If we have been paying attention to the media, or – radical idea! – listening to young people, we will have heard that many are pessimistic, even anxious and depressed about the future of the world. First it was the bomb. Why plan for the future when the whole world might be blown to smithereens in a matter of minutes. Now, for years already, it’s climate change. Our young have been brought up in a world of science, so they may tend to believe the scientists more so. Too many of us older folk were not as sure. Maybe we were in denial, having lived through two world wars, with a major depression in between. Maybe we thought, since we’ve lived through that and the bombs have not gone off again, and we seemed to be able to ‘fix’ everything till now, we can fix this.
Were we that blind? Were we in denial? Now those scientists, Christians even, are telling us we have less than ten years to turn things around or the fires burning around the world now will be burning everywhere. With that prospect, one might well ask – about practically every human endeavour not focused on that – what’s the point?
As some of you know, those few good friends – thank you so much - who purchased my book on Mary & Jesus, I did get one book published last year – but at my own expense. I have three or four stories I’ve begun to write but I really can’t afford to keep self-publishing. Besides, that doesn’t get you the publicity that might really help sales. Unless maybe you go into promotion full time for a while.
Earlier this year we had a small lending library in the lobby of our building. I picked up a Louise Penny novel there and found I really enjoyed it (She’s Canadian too). This week I read a story on her and found it had taken her fifty submissions to publishers before she got somewhere! Now that’s determination. Now she is internationally known and has sold over ten million books!
That gave me hope and I thought, I should get to work on those stories of mine. This morning even my wife encouraged me. On the other hand, I’ve just finished reading Thomas King’s Indians on Vacation. The protagonist is a retired writer who bemoans the fact that what he wrote does not seemed to have changed the world or made it a better place. He questions what was the point of it all. His partner thinks he’s depressed.
I retired nearly six years ago and there were issues around my retirement and since that have not always made things easy. Sometimes I wondered if I was depressed. I even convinced – I’m the (retired) psychiatrist after all – my family Physician to give me a trial of antidepressants. After six weeks and no difference I had to face the fact that it’s just me. Buck up my friend!
So, after breakfast I sat down at my desk, thinking I would get at the story that had most captured my imagination. I had even figured out that it could be more than 'just' an enteataining story. It could carry a strong and still needed message in our world (Hint, Jesus was a ‘feminist’, which might not be quite the right descriptor but you get the point).
But then those other messages I’ve been hearing, especially within the past week, echoed in my mind. Less than ten years? All else fails in the face of that. Is this a time to write novels? Is that like the old trope of the Roman Emperor Nero fiddling while Rome burned? Or is it a time to try and wake up enough of my fellow human beings who are not already ‘woke’ to the looming disaster?
I am not and have never been a pessimist. Unless I don’t know myself. Some might have even seen me as too far to the opposite at times. Especially as a Christian. As long as we know and believe that the Lord we serve – or claim to – is the Creator and Sustainer of this world, there is hope. We believe God’s plan will culminate in renewal of the world he made and once pronounced good, repeatedly. It’s up to us to listen to the voices around and inside of ourselves, to The Spirit, to see what our Lord would have us do in our present world situation. We understand God created us to be co-regents with him in ‘ruling’ this world. What does that mean for us today, here and now? Stay tuned – to the world and your inner voice, which, if you are a Believer, should be God’s voice. As long as God lends you breath, it’s never too late to get in the game.
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