Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen. Michael Jordan

What if Jordan Peterson is right, a mother can only be as happy as her most miserable child. What if this is true about society as well? What if we don’t want to see the terrible toll drugs are taking on our society because to look away means we don’t have to acknowledge a society that isn’t working for everyone?

What would it take for society to work for everyone? What would it take for someone to exchange meaninglessness for meaning? How must the change makers of the past have felt when they brought meaningful change to hurting souls? When they had a cause they believed in that would make life better – not for themselves, but for people they didn’t know, and weren’t born yet.

Where do we find meaning in our lives? Do we find it through service to others, our families, our community, and the greater society? Our society with all that is wrong with it, has many people who feel the hurts of others and want to help. The problem might be we are misusing empathy. He who is compassionate to the cruel will ultimately become cruel to the compassionate. Jewish folk saying

I’ve been listening to speeches from the ARC Conference (Alliance for Responsible Citizenship). Have we lost our way as a civilization and need to return to what helped us build a great civilization, but not a perfect one? It might be true we will always have the poor, but relative poverty is not the same as abject poverty.

Society grows and changes and we have to grow and change with it, but we have to keep the moral compass that has kept us moving forward for thousands of years. If we lose our faith in ourselves, our religion, and our society we will be ripe for other ideologies to take over. We have seen other ideologies rising, but we haven’t seen other ideologies create better societies. I think it is time for a revival of meaning and values and this is what ARC (Alliance for Responsible Citizenship) offers.

Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears. Les Brown

Working farms are being used as tools to overcome addiction. An active working farm resembles a life of recovery in that the work is never complete. Having grown up on a farm I can see how caring for animals, fields, and daily chores could help someone build a life of sobriety and meaning.

The other day, I heard someone mocking the idea of working for free on a farm to achieve sobriety. Would they rather see them on the street addicted to drugs? It is hard to know how to fix hurting souls, but if all we want to do is tear down other people’s ideas, how do we move forward?

We know working with animals helps people heal. We know meaningful routines are good for us. We know we need to remove ourselves from the environment that causes the problem. We know farm life is considered by many to be a wholesome life, and this might be exactly what addicts need. On a farm, they could find meaning, and structure, and be part of something bigger than themselves which will prepare them to go back out into the world, as a person with a contribution to make.

What if we are moving into a new era of people finding hope, meaning, and faith? Finding faith in themselves, a higher power, and faith in their countries, communities, and the world, and this is the antidote to a hurting world? We sometimes think people of faith are small-minded, but what if they are the big-minded people, not all of them, but enough to be the change we need? What if we can do all things through God who strengthens us? What if hope and promise are here, what if the future is bright?

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy. Dale Carnegie

If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself. Henry Ford

Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently – they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… They push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius… Steve Jobs

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read more, and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.