the end of this age and the beginning of the one to come.

In the last few days I've been doing a lot of thinking.

Part of the point of this semester was to try to figure out what "my purpose in life" is. or whatever that means. I think I might have just found something more important. something bigger than me, something bigger than any of us.

My eyes have been opened to something bigger, something that has been keeping me awake and unable to think for too long about anything else, unable to look at anything else without it being altered by this. In our culture (especially in the american church) we look at a lot of the practices that our society practices that we know are unjust, unwise, and unethical, and we use a word called "unsustainable" to describe the ethical dilemma. when we say that, we don't so much mean the official meaning of that word - if we did, it would result in a changing of our actions to a better way of doing things. We do that to excuse ourselves of the inherent guilt that lies in our collective actions; we would much rather be guilty of "unsustainable practices" than "indescribable and unforgivable evil against our world, our neighbor, and God".

But this is what we are guilty of. It was through my studies as a sociology minor that this has come especially to light. Even in the subtle things that we do not pay such mind, we have together created an evil and despicable culture that is a parasite of our world. The consequences of this are already written in the species that have gone extinct and in the land that has been laid barren and in the humans that have been reduced to poverty and effective slavery - both in our society and in foreign lands that we can barely even pronounce the name of. People are suffering because of our insistence on convenience, and an affordable, comfortable lifestyle. It's not that these things are bad, but we have been blinded to the fact that others have had to suffer and die because of our insistence. And this would all be fine, we could follow the ways of our most recent generations, who have stood in the face of these problems and pleaded ignorance, and continued along the way of self-indulgence and ignorance. We have turned our world into a place that is not good.

This would all not mean very much to us if it could continue this way. But my thoughts and the thoughts that others have interjected have brought me to a somber conclusion that is born out of prophecy but also out of what seems to be unwavering economic theory. We are headed irrevocably towards the end of the age. It's a sobering and yet unifying thought. The age of consumerism is about to burn. The ways of the world in which we grew up are about to become entirely dismantled. The word "unsustainable" seems to be searingly accurate - the way we live now cannot and will not continue. Unfathomable changes in our society and economy are coming, and they are coming in our lifetimes. Our generation is going to be forced to deal with the problems that the western lifestyle has wreaked on the world. We are going to run out of cheap oil, the lifeblood of american capitalism. The wheels will fall off of the "green revolution" models of agricultural society that make cities possible.

It makes me really uncomfortable and sad and worried but it also fills me with hope. so much hope. In our lifetimes, we will see the horrors of famine and war and human suffering, and we will see glimpses of the kingdom of heaven. Where do we fit into this? It's our job to make change, to love our neighbor, to begin to heal the world and turn this world into the world that it should be. I have many more thoughts on this, and many of my thoughts on this need to be expanded. I also want to cover on the blog what I'll be speaking about at CCF sunday school on sunday. We'll get to that. but here's a song.