Our greatest challenge

The climate crisis, entrenched poverty, the threat of malevolent artificial intelligence -- any of these could be considered humanity's greatest challenge. Oh, and the pandemic! While these are challenges worthy of our time, energy, and attention, the greatest challenge we face is the lack of a meta-narrative that unites humanity to create the conditions under which we can all thrive.

A meta-narrative is an overarching story into which other stories of struggle fit cohesively. The Bible offers one such meta-narrative (or, possibly, multiple meta-narratives) and it was gaining traction and uniting us. However, it struggled to address the irony of using violence and colonialism to establish and spread a narrative of God's promise of good news. Ultimately, the human drive for accumulation generated a different meta-narrative wherein humans are producers and consumers of material goods and wherein our worth derives from participating in a consumer economy. We need to put this meta-narrative to bed.

We need to see ourselves as part of a story that offers new life.

Our nearly-miraculous coming into being serves as an invitation for us to be part of new life. We are to protect and preserve ecosystems; we are to identify that which serves to divide us; we are to free ourselves from destructive tendencies, all so new life can thrive and all creatures can flourish.

Will you write yourself into the Big Story of new life?