Open to the Spirit
Today’s word: Future
any other. We are only as strong as our weakest link. I don’t want the seniors I care about to spend their last years in confinement. I don’t want my grandchildren to grow up in a world where the only way they learn to play with their friends is at a distance of six feet. Therefor I am learning that the solution to Covid-19 must be a unified, collaborative one, as the world leaders of the Coronavirus Global Response team are telling us.
Together we will rise from the ashes of this former world based on personal achievement. Together we will forge a new world based on collaboration, respect and compassion. Jesus called it loving one another as much as we love ourselves.
) I grew up reading science fiction. George Orwell’s “1984” seemed so far into the future when I read it at 15. “Brave New World” brought up some interesting issues.
Of course I watched “Star Trek” and “Lost in Space”. I even helped my Mom make spaceships for my younger brothers one year for Christmas. In all my imaginary dreams the future was a better world. We would have flying cars to avoid traffic, and plan vacations on faraway planets. All the new scientific gadgets would make life wonderful. I pictured a better world, with peace and freedom for all. You’re correct; I was pretty naive.
The future is here now. Out technologies surpassed our wildest dreams. We can communicate around the world instantly, even better than Captain Kirk could. However it is not a better world. We live in turmoil with war, poverty, greed, and sexual discrimination. We have managed to create new inventions, but forgotten to change people.
One of my favourite science fiction movies, “Back to the Future”, involved time travel, and the characters were constantly being warned to look, but not change anything because chaos could erupt. I have a different point of view. We have spent time with new inventions and changed many things for the better. We have, however, forgotten to change people.
I am still naive, and hope that we all learn compassion and acceptance, so we can truly create a Brave New World.
) It is always fun to watch the old videos of TV shows where people predict all of the incredible technologies and inventions which people believed would change our lives in the future. Flying cars, robot maids, robot vacuums, video conferencing software! Of course even many decades later, only a few of these inventions are now real and others seem so oddly farfetched that they are moved into the realm of useless but fun to imagine.
Yet, what is clear from these videos is that the future never comes as quickly as we think it will. We can predict what technologies will be important to us, and what new ideas will rule the world, but we rarely are right. The realities of our world get in the way of progress, and science, politics or money influence what actually can get accomplished. Unfortunately, it’s not the inventions that don’t make it. The values that we want to see in this future also don’t always come when we would like them to. The world simply evolves on its own path, and while some things jump forward, others lag behind.
I know that I want a future where there is a world more free of violence and suffering, and with cleaner air and less threat of environmental catastrophe. I want justice for those in need, and a more sustainable economy. I could go on. But somehow while we inch towards something to be proud of, this future never seems to show up fast enough. I don’t see any flying cars just yet, but if someone could at least invent a bit more hope. Then we would have something exciting to look forward to!
) On my fireplace mantle I have a clear glass sphere I watched my father make in his workshop one day years ago. Over the noise of the machinery he was polishing what had started as a random hunk of glass between two rotating ends of pipe. I watched awhile and I asked, “Is it for telling the future?” “Maybe,” he shrugged and laughed. “How does it work?” I persisted. “It won’t tell you anything when you look into it,” he said, “It’s up to you to imagine what you want to see happen.”
The future is usually predicated upon past and present. What we do today, or did years ago, mysteriously feeds into what happens tomorrow. So many voices speculate about the nature of our world post-pandemic. I look to the futurists, who like the biblical prophets of old, often meet with less than enthusiasm when they project the obvious outcomes if we continue as we are and blindly refuse to correct our course.
Most futurists will agree that changes in human history are birthed in times of great chaos. Transitions from one stage of human development to another can be messy and painful. As we know now. It’s as if we’ve been given a “time out” to reflect, reassess our priorities, and discover anew what is of ultimate value going forward. Time enough to stop and remember how critical our everyday choices are for shaping life in the long term.
There’s a fable about a young man who comes upon a man in his nineties who is planting an oak tree. He derides the old one, reminding him that his labour is useless, he’ll never live to sit under this tree. The elder nods knowingly. Instead he’s planting the tree for those who come after, as they too will someday be in need of its shade. Our kind needs now to shift perspective, from individual to collective needs.
By the way, that sphere - like anything human-made - isn’t perfect, there are a few bubbles trapped in the clear glass. To me they signify hope. Let’s hope they burst in ways we can hardly imagine! Ways we could only realize in answer to this particular crisis. Will this season of chaos give us new insight and wisdom to create a future of blessing? We get to decide.
One word, four voices - and now as always it’s your turn: What do you hope the future will be, and what would it take to see your vision come true?
Rev. Mead Baldwin pastors the Waterville & North Hatley pastoral charge; Rabbi Boris Dolin leads the Dorshei-emet community in Montreal; Rev. Lee Ann Hogle ministers to the Ayer’s Cliff, Magog & Georgeville United Churches; Rev. Carole Martignacco, Unitarian Universalist is retired from ministry with Uuestrie and now resides in St. Andrews bythe-sea NB, but keeps one foot in the Townships by continuing with this column.