Getting Involved in Constructing a Better Future? Sounds Like a Plan

Odds are pretty good that you've heard something from this list recently. Or read it somewhere:

1. The economy has collapsed!
   1. Or will pretty soon
2. Nobody
   1. 'Buys American' any more
   2. Makes anything worth buying in America
   3. Wants to work
   4. Really cares
3. Politicians are crooked
4. Congress is incompetent
5. My boss is a jerk
6. America's president is the antichrist
   • Or Hitler
7. All cute animals are doomed by the
   1. Disappearing ozone layer
      • Remember that?
   2. Pollution
   3. Urban development
   4. Global warming Climate change
8. All is lost
   • "...the center cannot hold;
     mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...."
     (Yeats)

I've left some golden oldies off that list, like the communist menace and the coming ice age. Those, and the 'fluoridated water conspiracy,' are almost as dead as disco.

If it seems that I'm picking on American foibles, or ignoring angst abroad, it's not because I don't like America, or don't care about the rest of the world. American culture is the one I know best, so that's what I decided to discuss. Besides, this blog is called A Catholic Citizen in America for a reason. Moving on.

Doom, Gloom, and Getting a Grip: By the Numbers

I don't know why so many folks seem to enjoy being so miserable. Here's my take on that list:

1. The economy
   • America isn't having a '50s-style 'happy days' experience today
   • The federal government is in trouble
     • But there's a whole lot more to America than the feds
   • I think we'll be okay
   • I've been over this before:
     • "America's Economy Isn't Doomed?!"
       (August 10, 2011)
2. Nobody...
   • Or, 'kids these days!'
   • See #1
3. Politicians are crooked
   • Some, yes
   • This is news??
   • I've posted about original sin before
4. Congress is incompetent
   • The current lot don't seem to 'get it'
     • But there's an election coming up
   • And see #3
5. My boss is a jerk
   • See #3
6. America's president is the antichrist/Hitler
   • Seriously?
   • See
     • "Reason, Emotion, and 'Take These Son-of-a-Bitches Out' "
       (September 6, 2011)
     • "Emotions, the Frontal Cortex, The War on Terror, Anarchists, and the Illuminati"
       Another War-on-Terror Blog (December 23, 2008)
7. All cute animals are doomed by the...
   • Pandas, maybe
   • Rabbits, not so much
8. All is lost
   • A poetry-lover like me might say that
     • But I won't

'We're on the Brink of Collapse?' Been There, Done That

At the risk of sounding apathetic or blase, I don't take the 'coming collapse of civilization' all that seriously. Partly because I've seen too many plausible-sounding predictions of doom turn out to be duds. Like:

• No more snow in the United Kingdom
• Global temperatures in 2000 being 11 degrees cooler (not a typo) than 1970's
  • And 'here comes the next ice age'
• A "continent-wide black blizzard of prairie topsoil" that led to global starvation and food riots
  • In the mid-1990s¹

If you don't remember any of those disastrous events - your memory's fine. They didn't happen.

Neither did the rolling predictions of the coming Apocalypse. Harold Camping's End Times Prophecy (prophecies, actually) stands (or stand) out mainly because he got on the national news. Judgment Day preachers get lucky now and then, in terms of getting a big audience. And that's another topic.

Fearing the Future, Getting a Grip

The Pope's going to Germany - the first time he's been 'back home' since becoming Pope. The motto for his trip is "Where God is, there is a future."²

I agree.

That doesn't mean that I think God will solve all our problems and give everybody the latest PlayStation, Xbox, and Wii gadgetry: along with an income that's higher than their neighbors. I've written, briefly, about the prosperity gospel before.

I've got the full authority of "some guy with a blog," but I think I'm on pretty firm ground in thinking that God isn't in the business of handing out health and wealth as payment for prayer.³

Here's more from the article where I found "Where God is, there is the future:"

" 'Yet the earth will be deprived of a future only when the forces of the human heart and of reason illuminated by the heart are extinguished -- when the face of God no longer shines upon the earth. Where God is, there is the future,' the Pontiff said on that occasion....

"...The Vatican spokesman recalled that 'from the first day of his election, Pope Benedict explained to us that the proclamation of the primacy of God would be the first priority of his pontificate. Who is God? How can we see his face? Where can he be found and how can one speak with him? How does the relationship with God guide the life of each person and his responsibility in society, laying the foundation for a search for justice and law?'...

"...the answers to questions such as these are what to expect from the Pope in Germany: 'Passing through a country where the totalitarian denial of God has demonstrated its most extreme consequences, we will reflect together on how to involve ourselves -- as persons, as believers in God, as Christians and as Catholics -- in the construction of a future worthy of man.' "
(Zenit.org) [emphasis mine]

Wait a minute: What's this "how to involve ourselves ... in the construction of a future...?!" Aren't we supposed to sit back and let God do all the work?

I don't think so, and I've written about that before, too. (September 13, 2011)

Related posts:

• "Sex, Science, and the Home Schooling Parent"
  (September 17, 2011)
• "Hope, Joy, and Working for a Better World"
  (September 13, 2011)
• "World Youth Day Madrid, and Living in an Imperfect World"
  (August 19, 2011)
• "Apocalypse Whenever"
  (June 14, 2011)
• "Climate Changes: So What Else is New?"
  (May 16, 2011)

More related posts, (mostly) in my other blogs

• My take on recent changes
  • "Horses, Gothic Cathedrals, and a Faith That Matters"
    (July 9, 2011)
  • "Silence, Prayer and iPods in Rome - My Take"
    (June 27, 2011)
  • "Time, Change, Culture, and This Catholic"
    (December 2, 2010)
  • "Diapers and the End of Civilization"
    (November 10, 2010)
    Particularly
    • "Happy Days," Nostalgia, and a Pretty Good Memory
    • Diaper Changing Tables: In the Men's Restroom?!
    • Pushing the Stroller and the End of Civilization
  • "The Web Rewires Your Brain: Ain't That Great?"
    Apathetic Lemming of the North (July 2, 2010)
    • Anything we learn "rewires" our brain
    • Note, particularly
      • Old-School Information Tech: the Codex
      • It's the End of Civilization As We Know It - ca. 360 BC
• The future foretold, none too accurately
  • "1938 World's Fair: A Fleischer Cartoon Take on 'The Future'"
    Apathetic Lemming of the North (February 12, 2011)
  • "Nine Decades of Robots Turning on Their Masters"
    Apathetic Lemming of the North (January 25, 2011)
    • On screen
      • And Stage
  • "Global Warming, End Times - 'We're All Gonna Die' Over the Last 45 Years Or So"
    (October 3, 2009)
  • "Clothing of the Future: 2000 as seen in the 1930s"
    Apathetic Lemming of the North (June 26, 2009)
  • "Cities of the Will be that Was"
    Apathetic Lemming of the North (June 22, 2009)
    
• Declarations of doom, and getting a grip
  • "Apathy is Rampant, But Who Cares? - The Sequel"
    Apathetic Lemming of the North (February 7, 2011)
  • "Lemming Tracks: Ice Age, Global Warming, Climate Change, and Living Scared"
    Apathetic Lemming of the North (November 19, 2010)
  • "Emotions, the Frontal Cortex, the War on Terror, Anarchists, and the Illuminati"
    Another War-on-Terror Blog (December 23, 2008)
  • "Science Fiction in the Movies: 'The Satan Bug' to 'The Matrix' "
    Drifting at the Edge of Time and Space (January 26, 2010)
  • "- - - 'And We're All Gonna Die!' "
    Drifting at the Edge of Time and Space (June 30, 2009)
    Particularly
    • Ecological Disaster, Cancer Everywhere, Humanity is Doomed?!
    • Deadly Plagues? Nuclear Armageddon? Humanity Reduced to a Handful? Been There, Done That
      • "...I'm immune - to the hopelessness that's a characteristic of so much fiction....

In the news:

• "Those Fearing the Future Should Follow Pope's Germany Trip"
  Zenit.org (September 20, 2011)

More:

• "The Future: Just Like Today, Only Different"
  Apathetic Lemming of the North
  • Link list of posts
    • Updated when I think of it

---

¹ Source:

• "Eight Botched Environmental Forecasts"
  Maxim Lott, FoxNews.com (December 30, 2010)

My micro-review:

• "Lemming Tracks: Blasphemy! Or, 'We're All Gonna Die' Predictions That Fizzled"
  (December 30, 2010)

² Excerpt from the news:

"Those Fearing the Future Should Follow Pope's Germany Trip" Zenit.org (September 20, 2011) "Benedict XVI heads to Germany on Thursday to propose answers to life's most essential questions, just as concerns about the future of the earth and the economy weigh heavily in the minds of many, says a Vatican spokesman....

"...[Director of the Vatican press office, Jesuit] Father Lombardi noted the motto the Pontiff has chosen for the trip: 'Where God is, there is a future.'...

"...The theme was taken from words Benedict XVI said in his homily in the Austrian Shrine of Mariazell four years ago, Father Lombardi explained, when the Pope 'interpreted Europe's demographic crisis as a sign of lack of confidence in the future.'

" 'Yet the earth will be deprived of a future only when the forces of the human heart and of reason illuminated by the heart are extinguished -- when the face of God no longer shines upon the earth. Where God is, there is the future,' the Pontiff said on that occasion.

"1st priority

"The Vatican spokesman recalled that 'from the first day of his election, Pope Benedict explained to us that the proclamation of the primacy of God would be the first priority of his pontificate. Who is God? How can we see his face? Where can he be found and how can one speak with him? How does the relationship with God guide the life of each person and his responsibility in society, laying the foundation for a search for justice and law?'

"Father Lombardi said the answers to questions such as these are what to expect from the Pope in Germany: 'Passing through a country where the totalitarian denial of God has demonstrated its most extreme consequences, we will reflect together on how to involve ourselves -- as persons, as believers in God, as Christians and as Catholics -- in the construction of a future worthy of man.' " [emphasis mine]

³ The Church has quite a bit to say about prayer. I think this is a pretty good place to start:

• Prayer is a good idea
  • Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2725-2745
  • Even if we don't get an immediate 'payoff'
    • Catechism, 2727-2728
• We can pray anywhere, any time
  • Catechism, 2742-2743