If you had told me back in February of 2017 that Trump’s presidency would end with a second impeachment in the House, followed by a second acquittal in the Senate (after he had already left office), a little over a month after angry Trump supporters sacked the U.S. Capitol building, all amidst the worst global pandemic in 100 years, and while Washington D.C. was being occupied by the U.S. military – well, I would have politely replied that you’re bat-bleeping crazy.
But that’s where we are here in America at the front end of 2021.
As to where things go from here – who can say? I’m certainly not going to make any predictions.
Frogs on fire falling from the sky wouldn’t shock me too much at this point.
But, seriously, we’re in a really weird place as a country right now.
We’re sharply divided in just about every way imaginable: Democrats vs. Republicans, conservatives vs. liberals, ultra-woke progressives vs. everyone else (and, seemingly, reality itself), urbanites vs. small towners, coastal dwellers vs. middle Americans, mainstream news watchers vs. Fox News watchers, identity group vs. identity group, and wealthy, powerful elites vs. the rest of us lowly peasants – just to name a few.
Large portions of the population seem to hold other large portions of the population in utter contempt, and differences of opinion and politics and worldviews have somehow become barriers to seeing each other as real human beings.
Maybe these are just signs of a society going through difficult changes and growing pains – or maybe there’re indicators of a nation on its way down the tubes.
I’m not sure what the way forward is, but I do believe it’s all in the Good Lord’s hands. I just pray He doesn’t decide to leave us to our own devices – because we don’t seem to be doing too good of a job managing our affairs or the planet in general.
But while there’s probably not a whole lot the average Joe (or Jill) can do about the larger sweep of human history, we all still have free agency and the power of choice.
We can decide how we’re going to act, how we’re going to treat each other, and what messages we’re going to let come out of our mouths or send out there into the virtual world.
We can decide how we focus our energies and spend our time and resources.
We can decide what goals we will pursue, how much we’re willing to sacrifice to achieve those goals, and how we go about getting there.
We can decide what we value, what we strive to preserve and protect, and what we will resist.
But all those things flow from the contents of our hearts.
And that’s the place a real change for the better will have to start.
