I never watch television during the day. I watch one, perhaps two, shows a year during the day time hours. My life just works better that way. But I have been quite sick this week with an odd mid-July respiratory infection, and I decided that since I let the girls watch unlimited television when they are sick, then I was going to extend myself that same luxury.
But what a week I chose!
As I’ve sat here on my couch watching about downed airplanes and military invasions and bombings and angry Americans screaming at children to turn around and go back home to their poverty and violence-ridden homes, I started to feel like my world was spinning out of control. Every channel I turned on, every news brief I saw, brought more and more knowledge of destruction into my safe, quiet home.
And it got to me. For the past day and a half, I have had trouble getting off of the couch. As I watched more and more, trying desperately to understand, praying that maybe a little insight might make all of this destruction seem a little less senseless, I found myself falling into a hole of despair.
After all, how could I peacefully cook my children breakfast while other people’s children are dying?
How could I travel to the store when AIDS workers traveling to a conference were shot out of the sky by other human beings?
How could I reconcile myself sitting on my couch, fearful that my cat might bring a mouse into the room while mothers half a world away can’t sit on their couches for fear that bombs might land in their children’s bedrooms?
How does it make sense? How do we continue to function in a world that is built around chaos and destruction and selfishness and fear?
And then I went to pick up my daughter at Vacation Bible School, and I saw adults leading children in songs of prayer. I saw the box Magoo made at VBS to keep all of her prayer intentions in. And I thought about the librarians that we have spent half of our summer with and how kind they are to the kids and how they work to develop programs to bring enrichment and joy into their lives. And as I thought of TJ traveling into murky neighborhoods to get to work, I thought about all of the other nurses and doctors at the hospital who spend their working hours and dedicate their brain power and skill to healing people, even those who certainly wouldn’t take the time to help them in return.
And I realized that at a distance, our world is an ugly, brutal place. People kill each other over beliefs and skin colors and ideologies. They kill in the name of their gods. They kill in the name of justice. They kill in the name of love.
But up close, we serve in the name of our gods. We teach to promote justice. We act in the name of love.
When we get together, we can be a nasty people. And at our core, all of us do have faults and weaknesses. But moreso at our core, we are a people motivated by love and forgiveness and justice and understanding.
Time and time again, when tragedy strikes our world, I get lost. But then I remember that all God calls us to do is keep our eyes on Him and do the best thing we can in order to make the world more beautiful. I can’t solve the problems in Russia and the Ukraine. I can’t bring those people back. Despite hours upon hours of reading and research, I can barely even comprehend the problems in the Middle East, much less solve them. And I can’t leave my children to help nameless ones at our border.
But God gave me hands and feet and a heart and a voice, and I can use those to make waves in my world that God-willing might eventually make ripples into the larger world. I can preach love. And I can teach love. And I can act love. And I can be love.
Seeing people with missile launchers able to take down a plane of nearly 300 people can make us feel small and inept. It can make it seem like the evil is winning. But I would venture that one person living a life of love can make every bit of an impact that one person acting out of hate can. The results might not be as dramatic. Love won’t make the nightly news. But its repercussions can last generations, long after the original seeds of hate have been buried and forgotten.
After all, the greatest story ever told was one of pure love. We still read it. We still study it. We still learn it.
Let’s make sure we live it.