We do not live in a Leave It To Beaver World anymore.
Fifteen years ago, there had never been a school shooting and twelve years ago, there had never been a terrorist attack on the United States. Slavery was demolished in 1863 but has reestablished itself through the act of trafficking women and children for sex and money.
As…you…read…this…sentence…four…people…will…die…of…starvation…even though the United States alone has enough surplus to feed them. Cancer has killed someone you love and is about to attack another without you even knowing it.
I could say more, but I don’t need to. You are experiencing it in your daily life just as I am.
What I do believe whole-heartedly, is that there is hope to overcome the evil of the world.
The hope is in YOU and me.
I know what you are thinking, I am only one person and those are big problems. But I want to encourage you with these words. I believe that each individual is given the power within them to change the world they live in. Yes, that includes you!
Here is how we begin.
“Marshall McLuhan wrote that ‘the problem today isn’t that we don’t have the answers, but that we don’t have the questions.”
We need to stop standing around striving for answers and start asking ourselves some questions.
- How are we nurturing each other in the pursuit of the fullest measure of our unique talents, as men and women for others?
- What actions are we taking that indicate our aspirations to become people who will positively influence in the world’s affairs, to strive for the “magis”?
- When do we incorporate our studies holistically into our lives, finding purpose and God in everything?
After asking myself these questions, I was compelled to question what role I play on the Global Stage. Have I become an audience member, paying the price of a theater ticket, watching and critiquing the play that is going on in front of me? Or will I become an actor for change on the Global Stage of life?
What role will you play?
Adapted from: Key Values of Jesuit Education (Based on the presentation “Jesuit Education and Ignatian Pedagogy” by Rev. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J., Superior General of the Society of Jesus, at Santa Clara University, September 2005.)
What do you think?