August 2022 Reflection It Ain't Over Yet
Lately, giving up might seem a reasonable option. Some days it feels like the only sane choice in a matrix of insanity. The planet’s heating up and causing flooding, fires, disease, and mass migration. Wise global leadership is in short supply. Greed appears to be the prevalent value. Meanwhile, the bulk of us quiet our nerves with junk food and another trip to the dollar store. There just doesn’t seem to be the collective will to make the changes necessary to survive! We circle the drain and pretend it’s a merry-go-round.
Yet all is not lost—not by a long shot. We can hold fast to this funny story about Abraham. He’s the father of nations, we’re told. But he earns this moniker when he’s too decrepit to be the father of anybody. This line always makes me laugh: he was "one man, himself as good as dead." Abraham’s a doddering old dude circling the drain when he encounters the God who promises to make him a wellspring of life. And here’s the kicker: Abraham bought it.
In those hours when that giant sucking sound we hear could be human history going down the drain, we might find comfort in the idea of rickety old Abraham jump-starting a whole new era. Simply by buying into hope! One trusting person, as good as dead, is sufficient to turn the fate of the world on its axis. This time, will that person be you?
Alice Camille, "It Ain’t Over Yet," from the August 2022 issue of Give Us This Day (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2022). Used with permission.