Beyond Doomscrolling

Thoughts on living as a person of hope in the midst of a changing America

Friday, February 28th, 3:30AM

I arrived home weary after a rewarding but busy four day speaking engagement in Colorado on Thursday evening. The alarm goes off at 3:30 and I’m awake and quickly shuffling out to my tiny house/office, where I make coffee and get situated with my computer and iPad for a 4AM zoom call. I’m on the board of a Christ-based environmental non-profit and this is our annual five hour session where we on the American board are privileged to hear of the work being done in ten countries to bring economic sustainability, environmental restoration, empowerment, healing, and hope, all in Jesus’ name. From the first moments on the call, my heart is flooded with joy as introductions and greetings are offered from Burundi, Thailand, Malawi, Tanzania, Mexico, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Congo, and more. These people are doing the real work, and in some of these places the works of justice and mercy are unfolding in the midst of life-threatening civil wars and terrors. Yet even in those places, the spirits of these women and men are undaunted, and I’m in awe of their humble courage and tireless optimism. The five hours fly by because these people on zoom from around the world fill my cup, renew my calling, and in the debrief with the American board, I confess to them that I let my wife listen in to the stories of the country leaders because, ‘she needed the reminder that God is alive and well and working in the world.’

After the country reports, our board met for four more hours and a substantial piece of that time was devoted to the discussion of USAID’s demise, the implications of that, and whether there are next steps for our work. It was a good, difficult, honest discussion. Other matters unfolded as well, and I found myself equally in awe of all the American staff members who work so tirelessly and professionally to facilitate the works around the world, resulting in millions of trees planted, and multiple thousands of lives changed, empowered, elevated, in Jesus’ name. What a privilege to invest in this work with time and money! I had a bit to eat and then enjoyed a brief nap, well-earned after my long day of travel and short night’s sleep.

Friday, February 28th, 2PM

I wake from my nap and learn that while we were meeting to discuss how best to spread hope, empowerment, and mercy around the world, a tense meeting in the White House had, at the least, severely strained our 80 year old alliances with the democracies of Europe, as our new president and his VP embarrassed America in their attempt to bully a democratic ally to accept a deal that would harvest Ukrainian resources as ‘payback’ for our investments in the war, while also refusing to offer Ukraine any security guarantees that we’d stand by them if Putin should ever decide to reinvade. Ukraine’s refusal to accept these unfair terms led to an outpouring of blame, shaming, and anger from our President and VP.

As what happened began to sink in I could feel the rage welling up in my body. Not only were decades long alliances weakened to nearly the breaking point as the public image of America begins to lean towards favoring the authoritarianism of Putin over the democracies of Europe (I never thought I would write that sentence), but also, the last shred of unity between the two American political parties was severed. As recently as Friday morning, hawkish republicans remained on Zelensky’s side of this stalemate, and committed to Ukrainian victory. After our President’s tirade, his party members lined up to distance themselves from Zelenksky and Ukraine. Now the two parties can’t even publicly agree on who started the war and who are the good and bad guys.

I’ll confess that I don’t think, in all my life, I’ve ever been as angry as I was for the next thirty minutes, which first presented as being sick to my stomach, as others also felt (see 2:40 in video link). If you think I’m overreacting, I won’t try to convince you of anything, and you can stop reading right here if you like, as you won’t resonate with the rest of this essay. If you share my frustration and anger in any degree at all, though, please continue.

Thankfully, some neighbors who’ve become very good friends this winter were out walking their dog, so my wife and I joined them and spoke of snow, ski touring, the NBA, and what comedies we could watch tonight to escape the moment. They, like my wife and I, were distraught at the events of the day in DC and wondering what to do about it.

…and its that last point which leads me to write. Too many of us who care about democracy, and the dignity of immigrants fleeing death squads and abject poverty, and accountability in government, are at risk of bouncing between doomscrolling (whereby we’re hit with people posting enough bad news that we soon began to believe that the sky must be falling, leaving us with feelings of despair about what to do), and disengagement (whereby ‘life is a Cabaret’ or if not that, at least a March Madness, followed by a baseball season, and a summer holiday, and then hope for our football team and Christmas parties, all held together with various levels of binge watching, alcohol, and whatever coping mechanisms we believe in). But the victim-creating mindset of doomscrolling and the passive escapes we do in response are, neither of them, helpful to anyone, including ourselves.

Is there a better way to live in the midst of all that’s unfolding?

The church and Christ-followers have been through the rise and fall of empires over and over again from the very first centuries. They’ve lived through the fall of Rome, and the tortured violence of tribal boundary wars during the dark ages. The boundaries on Europe’s map heaved throughout the 2nd millennium CE, and included the now famous rise and fall of the Third Reich, the rise and fall of communism, and now the current heavings and pains as authoritarianism and democracy vie for power around the world. Throughout the past, the healthiest responses of the people of God have embodied three qualities. These became an ecosystem in which holy, empowered action and intentional pursuits of divine intimacy and strength combine to birth a display of Divine light and joy, right in the midst of the storm. The people of God, at our best, must embody:

A CLEAR-EYED ETERNAL HOPE

When Jesus stood on trial before Pilate, he declared ‘My kingdom is not of this world,’ by which he meant that this visible world is populated with ideas of how to live together, ranging from oligarchy to totalitarianism to democracy, among others. There are also economic systems ranging from unrestricted capitalism to socialism, communism, various forms of slavery and feudalism, and multiple hybrids and mixtures of all these. Wars are fought over preserving, expanding, protecting, and imposing them. Too often, the church gets involved in these fights because it thinks it one particular system, assuring it’s success and impact, and so it gets in bed with a political system thinking it to be God’s means of preserving or furthering God’s agenda. That’s precisely what most of the church did in Germany with Hitler.

Jesus, though, went to great lengths to show us that his kingdom, while visible in subtle, yet significant, ways on this planet would never be fully aligned with any of the above mentioned systems and the church should never seek such alignment. After all, the original disciples were drawn from all manner of sects with their loyalties to Rome ranging from accommodating to abject hatred. Jews and Gentiles, rich and poor, men and women, Roman soldiers and Zealots committed to killing such soldiers, people from all these places were gathered, together, at the feet of king Jesus, their only thing in common being their relationship with him.

A silver lining in this moment is that we are getting a timeless reminder that our calling has never ultimately been about preserving a political system, even a good one like democracy. We don’t know how the chapter of this present administration ends, and speaking truth to power often leads to a recovery of liberty. Still, I can’t overstate the truth that, come what may, our calling is as citizens of a ‘kingdom which can never be shaken’. Trees in the forest survive endless administrations, wars, and nation states, because they continue to receive gifts from God, grow roots in the soil to connect with each other and fulfill their calling to bless and multiply. Our calling is be like the trees and get on with the work of making the unshakeable kingdom visible every day by receiving gifts with gratitude and joy, growing our roots of eternal identity, connecting with others, and using our gifts to bless and serve our world. Which leads to the next value:

DAILY DEVOTION TO OUR CALLING AND USING OUR GIFTS

The unshakeable kingdom is here, now, and rock solid, but citizenship in it doesn’t lead to disengagement. To the contrary, each of us has a calling to make the values of God’s eternal kingdom visible here and now by committing to God’s ethics of shalom, and using the gifts we’ve received in order to bless and serve our proud, broken, confused, divided, warring world. The church, at its worst, has invested its efforts in aligning with the powers of this world, which inevitably leads to alignment with the values of this world. Thus are heretics, scientists, outsiders, witches, and women accused of being witches, burned at the stake. Thus is violence elevated and celebrated. Thus is oppression given free reign in Jesus’ name. Thus is good called evil, and evil good. Please make sure you’re avoiding this false alignment like the plague (and it will be the main thought of my next writing).

The church, at its best, has done this time and again throughout history. From its earliest days spent pulling discarded babies from city dumps, to my zoom call yesterday, the kingdom values of justice, mercy, and love have poured into the world through people of faith. Each of us will do this in different ways because we are like parts of a body. One will paint. Another will write words of hope and challenge. Others will shelter people living on the margins. Others, like my friends scattered around the world I met with yesterday, will guide people towards holistic empowerment through teaching sustainable agriculture and forestry, organic farming, and more. Others will march in protests, as in the case of Romania, where totalitarianism collapsed under the weight of collective protests for freedom and justice. We may be approaching the days when such wide-spread activism is enjoined on all of us. Some are already starting. But the point for now is this: Find your calling, every single day, and do it with all heart, and with a quiet confidence and joy, because you know that you are investing in a kingdom that can’t be shaken by threat, lies, violence, greed, or any other thing!

FEARLESSNESS

From the earliest days of the church, the path of truth and mercy has met with threats of arrest, censure, violence, and death. At her best, though, the church’s response has taken its cue from Peter who said, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” This was their way of saying, ‘We’re going to get on with our calling of speaking truth to both power and vulnerability, living truth, loving all people, bringing beauty and hope into the world, crossing social divides, and aligning with the values of our one, true, and eternal king. Kill us if you feel you must. We’ll be fine, and so will our work, because our kingdom cannot be shaken.’

This is the freedom ‘from the fear of death’ of which the author to the Hebrews wrote. It’s not just freedom from the fear of physical death. We’re liberated from any all fears of loss because we have entered a bigger, eternal story. That’s why the Psalm poets of old could write,

…we will not fear though the earth give way,

though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,

though its waters roar and foam,

though the mountains tremble at its swelling.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

the holy habitation of the Most High.

God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved;

God will help her when morning dawns.

The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;

he utters his voice, the earth melts.

The LORD of hosts is with us…

Indeed. It turns out that the church transcends tribes, nations, and even time itself. The thought that it needs political protection in order to ascend and magnify its influence has always been laughable at best, heresy at worst, and also a constant temptation to which the church has succumbed. History shows us that the very human and understandable fear of losing status or wealth or comfort, leads Christ-followers to remain silent when they should speak out and affirm strong-arm tactics as ‘necessary to recover what’s been lost’ and even celebrate the small crumbs of power tossed their way in exchange for abandonment of kingdom values. The losses are real, tragic, and on full display in the nightly news and doomscrolling.

Today, though, I encourage you to join me in determining to live, right here and now, on the basis of the outlandish declaration that a different king is here among us, with different values, and get on with making those values real and visible in Jesus’ name by each of us doing our part. My friends in Haiti are getting on with it in the midst of violence. The same is true in Congo and the extreme poverty of Malawi. So here we are. Doomscrolling only leads to fear and anger. Pay attention surely, but only for the purpose of following your king’s marching orders in your next steps to making the good reign of God visible on this earth. Light wins in the end. If we believe that, then let’s live as people of light right here, right now. Ready? Let’s go.