Adding global warming to the horrendous problems list

I wasn't planning to take on the environment. I got into the peace work business when the president decided to start declaring preemptive wars on whoever struck his fancy. Suddenly a whole range of unexplainable elements in our country's behavior started falling into place at the pit of my stomach. It brought back all those memories of the Vietnam era, pushing the stroller along the route of peace marches. The peace work thing is what has its hooks in my heart. If the preemptive war thing hadn't happened, I'd have been so content to get my kicks teaching Sunday school, instead of organizing demonstrations. If you've never tried either of those things - Sunday school or demonstrations - you've missed out on a lot.

So after going-on-five years of intense work to end war (which has been all-consuming for a lot of that time), the black reality of global warming starts setting in, with this whole other conversation about how to address that problem. And it's such a biggie. One that moves to the top of the "Horrendous Problems" list.

Hum. Wonder what else would be on the Horrendous Problems list.

HORRENDOUS PROBLEMS
global warming
endless war
economy hijacked by oligarchs
environmental refugees (Arkansas had a bunch of those after Katrina)
overpopulation
mass starvation
collapse of social institutions (malfunctioning bureaucracy, schools, health care, economy etc.)
extinction of species
destruction of habitat
breakdown of social support systems
political system hijacked by oligarchs

That's enough. Every item on my list is followed by reams of subheadings. It's just too depressing. This is NOT the world I want my grandkids to think is normal.

You may not believe this, but I have friends who suspect that the Horrendous Problems list is a reason to give up. I guess if you get caught on the first two items on the Horrendous Problems list, you'd say "if endless war doesn't get us, global warming will."

Some of us just can't do that though. Can't give up and wait for short-sighted greed and foolishness to work it's way. I think that's because of this fire that burns just under the pit of the belly where fear tries to hang out. It's not necessarily a big fire. It's just big enough to keep fear toasted crisp and crumbly so it can't take over major bodily systems.

The "giving up" thing though, that's such a fantasy. You see pictures of starving African children with stick-thin arms and legs, sitting by a road with flies in their eyes. From the picture, you might think they "give up." They don't though. They'll put one foot in front of the other for hundreds of miles until they find help, or die. The body giving out doesn't mean the spirit giving up.

Amnesty International has all those stories of people who're imprisoned for years in tiny cells without light, without decent food, with bad water, brutalized in every way. Most are not Nelson Mandela's who come out and lead their people to freedom. Most come out suffering from PTSD. But for some strange human reason they don't give up. Seems like they could. Somehow they keep trying in the face of horrendous odds.

That's who I want to be when I grow up. I want enough fire that I can face down horrendous problems and hold onto my humanity in the end. If I never have to face down horrendous problems, that'd be ok with me. I'd go back to teaching Sunday school in a heartbeat. But for some unexplained reason, the world isn't moving that way. If I really value my humanity, I'd like to be prepared to defend it with wisdom, when problems get to the "horrendous" level. And be prepared to teach my grandchildren the same thing.