If We Only Seek the Bad, We Will Only See the Bad

“The bad stuff is easier to believe. You ever notice that?”  --Julia Roberts, "Pretty Woman", 1990

I like “end of the world” movies and TV shows and books.

These are the stories that always end with…well…the immediate or the threatened or the possible or the definite end of the world.  My favorites are hard to choose. There’s “The Day After Tomorrow” a 2004 “climate change gone crazy” movie starring the then heartthrob Jake Gyllenhaal as a teen falling in love, while also battling super subzero temps. Everything freezes all over the world in something like two days. Earth as a popsicle. That about sums it up. 

There’s also “The Stand,” the 1978 post-apocalyptic novel by Stephen King that tells of an epic battle between good and evil, God and the devil, in aftermath of a world killing flu pandemic.  The uncut and complete edition of this book weighs in at 1,152 pages, but even so I’ve read it cover to cover four times, the last when I was recovering from hip replacement surgery in the midst of this pandemic.  No doubt I will read it at least one more time before my personal end of the world story comes true.      

Why my gruesome fascination with the end of the world, end times, the apocalypse, Armageddon? I’m not sure.  There is the page turning drama inherent in such tales: what could be more at stake than all of life itself? Since such stories can be very, very far-fetched (like every single zombie apocalypse movie ever made!) they do offer complete escape from a world of hurt, especially in times like these. 

But the real reason I crave such tales may come from something called the negativity bias. That’s the human habit of responding to negative information and experiences much more quickly and powerfully than to positive information and experiences.  We homo sapiens tend to lean towards the depressing. Like that time in my employee review when nine people said “Good job John!” and one negative Nellie said, “Bad job!”  All I heard in my head walking back to my office was the words from that lone critic. Or the week on vacation, an amazing time away, when all I could think of was the one bad rainy day I had, not the 20 great sunny days I enjoyed.

Negative bias has been scientifically proven: we humans just tend to gravitate more towards the bad than the good, the down than the up, the end of the world versus “the sun will come up tomorrow!”  I’ve been pondering this truth as I doom scroll the news every day, especially about the war in Ukraine. Doom scrolling is where we seek out bad news, surf the internet, jumping from one awful story to the next, unable to stop. I’ve been stuck in this behavior the past few weeks. Refreshing my news website every few minutes to get the latest. I see it in others too. Folks just so weighed down by the sheer heaviness of planet earth right now.

The sad thing is that there is actually good news, even in the midst of the doom and gloom. Doesn’t mean we somehow downplay or soft pedal just how much folks are suffering right now, especially in the war zone.  It does mean we must—for our own sanity and spirit—find some glimpses of hope and the good. Some light in the darkness.

I know I must find some positivity to ponder.

Consider this: in a matter of days after Russia’s attack, almost every single nation on earth went on record at the United Nations condemning Russia’s invasion. Most of those countries are also now putting the squeeze on Putin’s economy with sanctions and sacrifice at home (like $4.50 a gallon gas). It is working, albeit at a slower pace than the battles. It’s the largest show of global solidarity and support for democracy and freedom since World War II.

Consider the merciful and miraculous welcome being extended to the almost three million refugees forced out of their own country by Russia’s savagery. Poland alone has embraced 1.8 million folks, most of them women, children, and the elderly.  Ukrainians are settling across the European continent--sheltered, fed, protected—in huge numbers. Out of this humanitarian disaster is the humanity, decency, and kindness being shown by so many, to so many.  It belies the cruelty of Putin’s violent bullying and reminds us that, yes, most folks are good at heart. Most folks do want to do the right thing.

I’m blown away by the courage of so many Ukrainians who are defending their homeland.  Who love freedom so much that they are ready to put their lives on the line for it. I’m amazed at their bravery, and that they are still holding back one of the biggest armies in the world. Their example makes me wonder just how grateful I am—and should be--for simple gifts like shelter, food, warmth, and safety. 

Yes, there is plenty of negative news to absorb these days.  Given the enormous and seemingly infinite amount of news and media now available to all of us 24/7 with just a swipe on our phones, we can easily doom scroll until…well…the end of the world. Or maybe we can balance that out by also searching for the good.  Seeking out those human beings who are displaying humanity at its best. Remembering and trusting, as my faith teaches me, to believe that in the long arc of human history and the universe, the good and the just do prevail. Will prevail.

I dare all of us not to doom scroll, but instead to actively look for the light. For love. It is out there. We just have to overcome our negative bias to find it.

The end of the world? As fiction, yes. As truth? Not yet.

 

                                   

Life Is a Test In 2022: Will We Pass?

“All through my life, I have been tested. My will has been tested, my courage has been tested, my strength has been tested. Now my patience and endurance are being tested.”― Muhammad Ali, 2004

A test.

That’s what it feels like to me the past two years has been about. Like life is a test. Like all the huge cataclysms and social upheavals, we’ve experienced collectively in the past 104 weeks or so; it is as if life itself is testing us, to see how we all will do and respond. 

I mean in your lifetime—have you ever experienced such dramatic and so many world altering events as those that have happened since the second week of March 2020?  Yes, it’s only been that long ago since it all started. First COVID, as in lockdowns, as in remote school and work, as in so many deaths, as in overflowing hospitals and nursing homes becoming prison like and surgeries getting cancelled and workers putting their health on the line for us and those ever-besieged health care workers who are still at it, today, tending the sick and the dying. They certainly must think it is a test.

In these weeks we’ll mark 730 or so days ago that our world changed in the blink of an eye. One day the country is wondering if Joe Biden can beat Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries. The next day the newspaper headline spoke for itself: “FEAR, CANCELLATIONS SPREAD”.  And then the headline on Friday March the 13^th: SHUT DOWN.

Thus begins our test.

If it was just COVID that would have been awful enough. Maybe we could have handled just one global crisis. Then the pile on began. The murder of George Floyd and how his tragic death brought our nation to a place of racial reckoning, to face our collective sin. Then an ugly national election in the fall of 2020. Then an attempted violent overthrow of the United States government and a legitimate election in January of 2021. Then a President impeached for the second time. Then an overheated economy and $4 a gallon gas and sky-high housing costs. Then, an awful, bloody, violent war in Ukraine, in Europe, waged by a blood thirsty despot who shows no signs of offering any mercy. A tyrant sitting on top of 6,000 nuclear weapons.

Now can you see why this all might seem like a test?

Like life or the universe or fate or chaos is just piling on the disasters to see how we as a world and as individuals will step up. Does humanity have the right stuff to survive, maybe even thrive? Or will these calamitous cumulative events force us to put up our hands and declare, “I give up.” Cry “Uncle!”

It'd be understandable if we did so. WE ARE STRESSED! A recent poll by the American Psychological Association of some 2,000 Americans, as of March 2022, shows we’re pretty much freaking out about everything. Eighty seven percent of us stressed about fast rising costs. Eighty four percent about the “terrifying to watch” invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Sixty-nine percent fear for a possible World War III.

I’d be more stressed, if I was not so stressed, if all of this drama was just rolling off of my back and I was going with the flow, you know, doot in da doo doo, feeling groovy! Nope. Instead, I’m carrying a lot of worry right now as I know so many of my fellow Americans are, as are the folks in the church I serve, as are the people in my family I love, as are the friends I spend each with on Zoom who lament with me, somehow making this shared life test easier to face into.

Some might say God is the one testing the world; to use Albert Einstein’s famous metaphor, God is “playing dice with the universe” to teach us a lesson. I just can’t see God as being that cruel or calculating. Instead, what if God is the one who gives us all our common humanity, a common heart absolutely breaking wide open at the sight of so many innocent folks suffering in Ukraine. A human community outraged at this war, united in its opposition to the Putin and his evil actions.  Maybe this universal spirit gives us the strength to not be bowed by this test called life in 2022, but instead spiritually buoyed, called to action, stepping up in the face of so much challenge. Maybe to live in these times is a gift and even a privilege somehow.

We get to witness history. We get to make history in how we choose to live in these days of testing. Dare we live in hope, trusting times will get better? Dare we live with compassion, responding to so much pain with so much care and mercy? Dare we take this test and yes, maybe even ace this test?

Life is a test. Grant us the wisdom, grant us courage, for the living of these days. For the taking of this test.

 

    

 

Civility Explained. Don't Be a Jerk. Please.

 

"Civility is not a tactic or a sentiment. It is the determined choice of trust over cynicism, of community over chaos.” --President George W. Bush

It’s the kind of current event you might have easily missed in the intensity of the news cycle. With war raging in Ukraine and a state of the union speech and baseball on strike and the usual cultural chatter, I’d have overlooked it too if I hadn’t seen the video for myself.

Wednesday, March 2.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was participating in a low key, typical news conference, his extolling the virtues of a state funded cybersecurity education initiative.  DeSantis walked up to a podium while the cameras rolled. Behind him stood seven high school students, all masked up.  The gathering was at the University of Florida at Tampa in Hillsborough County, an area the CDC considers high risk for COVID, and still recommends indoor masking.

DeSantis noticed the youth were wearing face coverings, turned, and faced them, his back now to the camera, and then began to lecture/harangue/berate those young people. All depends I suppose on how you hear what he said.  And this is what he said. “You do not have to wear those masks. I mean, please take them off. Honestly, it’s not doing anything. We’ve got to stop with this COVID theater. So, if you wanna wear it, fine, but this is ridiculous.” And then he turned back around, let out an audible sigh and with a scowl on his face finally began the briefing.

Meanwhile behind him the students looked awkward and embarrassed. They smiled uncomfortably and squirmed. Some removed their masks. Others stood pat.  It was an absolute cringeworthy moment.  An impatient and petulant adult telling kids that they are dupes or clueless or even “theatrical” in taking their precautions. As one of the boys, high school freshman and 14-year-old Kevin Brown Jr. said of DeSantis’ behavior, “I was a little bit surprised at his tone.” Brown wore the mask because he was surrounded by many unmasked people and is still worried about getting COVID. Brown’s Dad, Kevin Brown Sr. was blunter in his assessment of the Governor going off on his son and the others. In his view DeSantis should, “stop bullying kids.”

A side note: if the Governor had been a Democrat and not a Republican I still would have written about his rude and childish behavior. This is not about ideology or politics or debating public health policy. It is instead an example of the rampant and unchecked incivility that is becoming the norm in our world, especially among our so called “leaders.”  Like when the President of the United States is caught on a “hot” mike saying of a reporter, who asked a fair question at a gathering, “What a stupid son of a _____!” Or when his press secretary sarcastically mocked another reporter for suggesting the administration should send COVID test kits to every American.

Yes, this lack of civility is bipartisan. 

A boor is a boor, regardless of what side of the aisle they claim as home. What kind of leader, what kind of “adult” shames a kid for taking care of themselves or insults a reporter for just doing their job? Oh, let’s not forget about the two Congresswomen who stood up at the state of the union speech and heckled the President at the exact moment in his speech he was talking about the death of his son Beau from brain cancer.

I know some might judge my criticism of DeSantis and other impolitic politicians as overly nit-picky or just over the top.  What’s the matter with a little temper tantrum, right? Lighten up! Those kids aren’t snowflakes—they can take it. And he is the Governor after all. Who knows? Maybe he had a long day. Maybe he was “hangry,” or his pants were too tight. Got up on the wrong side of the bed. 

I won’t give him that benefit of the doubt. Won’t give any public servant or elected official slack on this question of civility in government and governing. Remember what your mother taught you? If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all. If only that were the rule in the halls of government.

Civility is not just about being polite though politeness absolutely matters. Civility is the social glue that holds together a society. Civility allows opponents to disagree while not being disagreeable. Civility is about taking the high road and not going in for a low punch. Civility is about kindness and respect: the golden rule. Treating others as you’d like to be treated.

Not much to ask.

And in these days when everyone is on edge or has some reason to be cranky, we need the leaders among us to set a good example of patience and yes, love for others. Doesn’t seem like too much to ask.              

Listen to your mother. She was right. Civility is the civil thing to do.

 

 

 

     

 

Oh my God: What Else to Say Or Pray In the Face of War

“Oh my God, this is actually happening.”                

--Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine, February 24^th, 5:09 am

“Oh my God.”—that’s as appropriate a response as any to Russia’s invasion of the sovereign nation of Ukraine a week ago today. “Oh my God!”—as in God help us all, for war has once again visited its ugly and violent visage upon Europe and this time a strongman bully is waging it. He, who claims the invasion is necessary for “self-defense” and to protect its citizens in Ukraine. Sound familiar? It’s a justification used by too many violent bullies in present times and past times too.

“Oh my God.”—as in God help the 44 million Ukrainians who are now at risk: for death, for injury, for displacement, for fear, for hunger, for all the horrors that accompany twenty first century warfare.  Imagine going to bed one night in a land at peace and then waking up the next morning to war, in your home, in your neighborhood, in the land you love.  I cannot imagine that and yet, right now, folks in Ukraine are living that nightmare, and all because of the autocratic aspirations of a despot. 

“Oh my God.”

The scenes and sounds coming out of Ukraine are both all too familiar and all too depressing. Every war is, in a way, the exact same war. Air raid sirens wail as empty streets give witness to the thousands sheltering in basements and bomb shelters, as bombs drop from the night sky and illuminate the horizon in an eerie yellow and green glow. Cars and trucks stand backed up on highways as thousands of families and neighbors and the very old and the very young flee—to anywhere but this war zone that just yesterday was a beautiful European city. Buildings lie in ruin, with windows blown out and piles of debris everywhere and black smoke rising in the distance.

These are the images that are coming to us now daily, that always come when the bombs begin to fall.  It is Ukraine. It is Syria. It is the Gaza Strip.  And it was also war…in the Ardennes Forest. And on the ships at berth in Pearl Harbor.  And on the cold and desolate plains of Korea.  And in the rice paddies of Vietnam.

“Oh my God!”  The lesson is that humanity never seems to learn that war is always ugly. That war is a sin. That even when war is fought for the “right” reasons, still it is finally immoral, for war drags down both the aggressor and the aggrieved into a maelstrom of death. No turning around or reversing course. Once the genie of warfare is let out of the bottle there is no way to put it back. Something tells me that Russia is going to be learning that truth in the weeks and months and perhaps even years ahead, as it seeks to conquer and subdue a people and a culture. It will also be paying for that truth in pain and suffering, and not just for the Ukrainians but for its own people too.  What a waste of life. 

“Oh my God!”

So, I’d ask first, that no matter what your belief system, no matter what your faith or no faith at all, still say a prayer, especially for the most vulnerable in this war.  Pray for innocent children that they might somehow escape injury, death and becoming refugees. Pray for the brave souls seeking to be free and to oppose tyranny.  Pray for the leaders of this world that together they might somehow be able to end this war as quickly as possible and to do so in a just and fair way.  Pray for the world, especially Europe, that this part of God’s Creation would not be swept up again in a worldwide conflagration. Pray for Ukraine: that this sovereign nation might somehow be able to still be free.

“Oh my God.”

Sometimes that’s all we can say, all we can feel, and all we can pray. God knows and God hopes that humankind shall one day, “beat their swords into ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war anymore.” The prophet Isaiah proclaimed that holy vision some 2,700 years ago. We still haven’t gotten it right.

Oh my God. What more can be said?