2 Thessalonians 3:13

There are times when it all seems overwhelming.

Your pilgrimage seems more like a rat race (that the rats are winning).

Caesar seems secure upon a throne of might.

Corruption is evidently the only way things get done. It's a game you don't want to play yet you feel that if you don't play it you will get chewed up, spit out, and trampled upon. Or simply ignored, left to some isolated fate, unremarked and unnoted, your life a forgotten waste.

Things have come to such a pass that you feel it is too late to set them aright again. It seems all we can do is wring our hands, bemoan our fate, despair.

Sooner or later we all have these moments. Some unfortunates feel this way all the time--and if I could send them a cyberhug and it would help... here it is: (((((( )))))).

No one of us can set the world right.

But there is something we can do.

In our small slice of the totality.

υμεις δε αδελφοι μη εγκακησητε καλοποιουντες

Ngunit mga kapatid, huwag kayong panghinaan ng loob sa paggawa ng mabuti.

Ndugu wapendwa, ninyi msi choke kutenda mema.

Ma voi fratelli, non stancatevi mai di fare il bene.

Et vous, frères, ne vous lassez pas de faire ce qui est bien.

Euch aber, liebe Brüder und Schwestern, bitten wir: Werdet nicht müde, Gutes zu tun!

Pero vosotros, hermanos, no os canséis de hacer el bien.

Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.

We can carry on. We can bear witness to what we know. We can speak the truth. We can act justly, kindly, compassionately. We can do what little we know how in order to ease a neighbor's pain or anxiety. And when we can do no more, we can just be with them, caring. We can look at one another in love instead of frustration or disgust. We can look deeply to behold the divine presence within them. And in ourselves. We can manage that little gesture. We can encourage. We can embolden. We can empower. We can change a little here, a little there. We can join with others of like mind. We can be patient. We can be pushy. We can seek to know when to do which. We can march, and write, and call, and insist. We can sit still, meditate, and seek wisdom. We can disseminate truth in world of lies and we can encourage healing, liberating, empowering laughter. We can choose to be ourselves and not some phony image that others wish us to assume. We can pray. We can toil. We can approach each day with open hands and hearts, with gratitude, with humility.

The minutest changes, accumulating, make for immense differences, just as many droplets of water become rushing floods.

I've had the "world is going to hell in a handbasket" blues lately, as my posts have reflected. I have, I confess, come to a point of near-despair over our constitutional government which, at the moment, ain't working. Mind you, I am nowhere near the litany with which this post begins, in case you're getting concerned.

I have no idea what the future holds. It is not uncommon for me to break down and weep for our troops that we send on pointless errands, without adequate equipment or protection, without a clear mission, without an achievable goal, without an exit strategy; tossing their lives into harm's way for the sake of a combination of ideologies, profit, and the pursuit of power. And I weep for those we bomb, disrupt, displace, and destroy. And I weep for the soul of our nation.

I also weep with tender joy for the beauties of creation, for acts of courage and compassion, for love, and for the goodness of God. I see people banding together to do good. I witness random acts of kindness and very purposeful ones as well. I have not given up on the world or humanity.

It is far better to be tenderhearted than to have one's heart petrify. In my fiction, it is the tears of the people that water a waste land and heal it. Perhaps my efforts are part of the River of Life and my words are past of the world's healing. I trust they are.

I can seek to do good and not evil. I can hold fast to truth. This one verse from tomorrow's lessons speaks to me, encourages me

As I write this, I am not down. I am simply sharing where I have been of late and the brink on which I teeter yet. And I recall the words to the church in Saloniki.

Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.

Yours in the struggle! Remember, grace abides.
--the BB