An Unholy Mess

Passover, Easter, Ramadan. We’re in the holy season, but does the world feel holy to you?  

To me it feels like the world is an unholy mess, lurching from crisis to crisis with despots freely perpetrating their dastardly deeds.  The despicables that snatch reporters like the Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich, and throw them into jail.  

The headline grabbing, power hungry rulers that try to ram through nation-altering laws with perfunctory attempts at serious dialogue and cursory nods to consensus building.

The polarizing politicians that pander to their extremist bases and salivate at the chance to even “the score” with their nemeses and who won’t stand up to liars and who won’t stand for the truth because of their narrow-minded ambitions.  A privileged political class that uses its power to intimidate, humiliate and attack.  And then there are the war criminals that sacrifice their own citizens as cannon fodder.

We are in a world where normal is wrong and abnormal is right.  Where common sense is a trigger for perceived trauma and differences of opinion are demonized. 

In this holy season there is scant reverence for rationality over unreasonableness, for judiciousness over imprudence.

I am definitely not a theologian, I am just an observer, and I see a troubled world where common words are banned and brazenly used to banish and abuse.  A world where the pillars of democratic governance are pilloried by those too pusillanimous to stand up for what is just.  Where nothing and no one is out of bounds or off limits.  Where the populace is addicted to the spectacle of bread and circus and are too willingly abetted by tin-horn emperors, false messiahs and profit-pursuing media moguls.  Where due process is disparaged, replaced with online inquisitions. 

The future of the world is fraught because it’s filled with false ideological fantasies.  

Passover, Easter, Ramadan.  A time of the year to celebrate liberation, life and love.  Let’s pray next year’s holy season take place in a world that has turned its back on hate and celebrates hope, that rejects rancor and embraces respect and above all, peace.