In Our Current Situation in the World

In our current situation in the world, it's tempting to complain and blame, which you may be entitled to do in some cases, I'm sure.

However, as the narrator of C.S. Lewis' The Silver Chair says early in the book, just as one of the characters bemoans the crisis of losing a companion over a cliff, followed by confrontation with a lion: “Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do.” Amen to that.

Here are ten responses I'm holding on to, and I encourage you to do the same. In your prayers and reflections as a child of God and follower of the Way of Jesus, you will probably think of others. That's good, but stop there. Get up and do something.

In the current situation in the world...

If you want the world to be a good place, you need to live to your best to be a good person.

If you want the world to be a loving place, you need to live to your best to be a loving person.

If you want the world to be a trusting place, you need to live to your best to be trustworthy and trusting.

If you want the world to be an honest place, you need to live to your best to be an honest person.

If you want the world to be a healing place, you need to live to your best to be honest about your own brokenness, needs, and need for others.

If you want the world to be a friendly place, you need to live to your best to be a friend worth having.

If you want the world to be whole, gracious, and united, you need to live to your best to be open, graceful, and willing to accept others as children of God.

If you want the world to be a safe place, you need to live to your best to be a person who stands up for justice for those who cannot stand for themselves, and for those who can because you know it makes a difference in heart and soul when we stand together.

If you want the world to value forgiveness and reconciliation, you need to live to your best to be a forgiving person, which means, in part, being willing to face up to and admit when you have been wrong and asking to be forgiven yourself.

If you want to be the kind of leader God honors, you need to live to your best to be a person who serves, who can lead not with power but with authority based on integrity and love for God and others – narcissism is the antithesis of true leadership.

Your world will become how you see it, how you think it, how you live it, defined by your courage, humility, and the power of God’s cross-shaped love resident and alive in you.

Grace and peace, Bob Guffey

-This quote from Maya Angelou is painted on the exterior wall of the Equal Justice Initiative's (EJI) The Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. The photo was taken by the author on September 19, 2024.