Good Will Toward Earth

I pulled out my trifold scrap paper scratch pad that is always with me. The Earth had just moved under my feet in the middle of a church service, and I had to take note.

What had happened is that, once again, I felt the deep sadness of being doomed to failure to see “Peace on Earth, good will toward men” since the last year’s advent service. And it came to me:

We can’t achieve peace on Earth or show true, meaningful and lasting good will toward men if we fail on such a massive and ongoing manner to show good will toward the planet from which those theoretical recipients of our peace take their lives and livelihoods.

After a long cathartic spleen-venting screed against what our collective greed has made of capitalism, I came back around to acknowledge that, if you squint just so,  there are some really hopeful things happening in our relationships with Earth and each other.

If you’d care to read more, I posted the full piece over at Medium–my 2014 end of year message cast out into the ethers.

[su_button url=”https://medium.com/@fred1st/peace-on-earth-good-will-toward-earth-8026ed1a1332″ target=”blank” style=”soft” background=”#a1c8ea” color=”#1f1717″ size=”5″ wide=”yes” center=”yes” radius=”5″ icon=”icon: thumbs-up” icon_color=”#ffffff” text_shadow=”1px 1px 0px #000000″ desc=”Peace on Earth, Good Will to Earth: Towards a Genuinely Peace-focused 2015″]Peace On Earth, Good Will to Earth[/su_button]

And if you need more supporting documentation to begin the new year hopefully, read on….

The world is not falling apart: The trend lines reveal an increasingly peaceful period in history.

Here’s to a great 2015! | MoveOn.Org | Democracy In Action
Robert Reich points to the way things ARE WORKING in late 2014

And on the grudgingly pessimistic side, an excerpt from poet W. H. Auden‘s post-Christmas lament: http://genius.com/W-h-auden-well-so-that-is-that-annotated