Advent December 8: Guilt or action?

This reminds me of President Obama's The Audacity of Hope. I never liked that title. It was too passive. Hope is not an action-word. Hope is more a feeling than an action, just like guilt is a feeling. One can feel hope or guilt and as any feeling it can make you act. Action speaks louder than words, thus goes the saying. Action also speaks louder than feelings.

Should we feel guilty? Is there hope to believe in? We should never just passively hope for a better world and not work towards that goal. We should never just feel guilty about the wrongs without act to remedy hurt and injustice.

Never/Always is words that should inspire to action but seldom does. They are just too absolute. We just give up because it is impossible. But then we are just left with our hope or guilt and no action plan. A more human idea is needed.

How can we change the world? We can do it little by little. Sometimes it can come in big jumps. Small steps that works is better than large ones that fail. The world is changing action by action, from one person to the next, one city to another, one country to another, one continent to another.

It is in vain, they say. The expert say that what one person does, does not change anything. They are wrong. In the big picture we all matter. Climate change, whether human-made or not, is going to make our life difficult. Why not believe we can undo some of our damage? Does it hurt us to not make so much waste, and some of it is really dangerous waste? Does it hurt us to make sure than we are not killing more animals, destroying more land than is really necessary?

We can make changes that are not only good for our world but it is good for us. Then there is the small changes we can do when we interact with each other. We can be kinder. We can work to stop hatred. First we battle the hatred in our own hearts. Then we find love for ourselves and the humankind.

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