Just a simple question. Really. No agenda. No answer I think everyone should agree upon. What do you want? Do you want calm, peace, security, rest, and relaxation? Do you want a sense of purpose? Do you want to make the world a better place? Do you want your children/grandchildren/future generations to know peace/harmony/acceptance/comfort/ease? Would you like to wake up in the morning hopeful, positive, excited, and energized? Is this what you are feeling?

Look, I know things are hard. Are we caring for the poor and marginalized? Are the government safety nets firmly in place to care for the most vulnerable among us? Are we celebrating the massive value and diversity brought to our country by our immigrant assets? Are we working on prison reform, cutting edge research in medicine and technology? Are we supporting our institutions of higher learning and cultural transformation? Okay, no. We are in a regressive and significantly witless period of our lives. We are defunding the very disciplines that have made our lives what they are, but this cannot last forever. Sanity will return.

Matthew 13 speaks of seed sowing. When seeds are sown there is no guarantee what will grow, but faith commands that we sow nonetheless. So, what do we really want? That defines for us the quality of the seed we are planting now. Will we live to see the harvest? I don’t know. But that isn’t our call, nor our concern. We are seed sowers. So, what seed do we sow?

I think what we sow are seeds that blossom, bloom, explode, and flourish as the fruit of the Spirit. We sow the seeds of love and joy, peace and patience, kindness and generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. We sow seeds of mercy, compassion, forgiveness, justice, and harmony. We plant in the soil of humility, grace, acceptance, and empathy.

I heard recently from our current Washington administration that compassion is a sign of weakness, that leaders cannot and should not be compassionate. A few months ago, I heard the same thing about empathy. Leaders who disdain both of these fundamental attributes are rejecting Christ and anything resembling Christian faith. I know that leaders such as Netanyahu, Putin, and Trump hold such things in deep contempt, but that does not mean they are wrong. The powers and principalities of this world concerned the Apostle Paul, and they should concern us. Basic Christian values are good, solid, worthwhile, and important. Christians cannot (and should not) support powerful leaders who not only reject, but defy and violate the most basic moral standards of human decency.

What do we want? A world of division, discord, hatred, violence, disagreement, gun violence, contempt, anxiety, insult, and fear or a world of kindness, caring, healing, safety, encouragement, and inclusion? It is a fairly simple decision. What do you want? Make it happen, make it real.