I keep trying to be optimistic in the midst of these trying times that seem in some ways to represent the destruction of many of the hopes and causes that have dominated my life journey. I have always hoped for more freedom, more justice, more peace, more abundance, more fun and happiness, more understanding and a broader range of choices for all the world's people.

At the moment, it would certainly appear that things are running in quite a different direction for much of the world. We seem to be in kind a struggle between what one writer and thinker calls "Jihad Vs. McWorld". In a book by that name, Benjamin Barber looks at how the sharply diverging paths of globalism and tribalism are reshaping the world. 

This prescient book published in 1995, well before the precise current problems surfaced, gives us a good overall perspective on the current world disorder and puts individual conflicts in a larger framework. I think all of us need to keep ourselves well informed in these emotionally and intellectually demanding times and a book like this that provides some broader views seems like necessary reading for all progressive thinkers who can't allow ourselves the luxury of emotional knee jerk responses to the many forces that seem to be aligned against a more liberal and people oriented worldview. I am in the midst of reading this book that offers some possible third option solutions to seeming either or situations.

I think as we move out of the Easter, Passover, spring solstice and Beltaine season with their promise of renewed hope and new options, we all need to think outside the box and help imagine a totally new way of being for the troubled middle east and the whole world beyond the options of either a tribal world or a totally materialist and consumer oriented world. 

If there was ever a time to strive to keep the hope for a better tomorrow alive it is now. Let us resolve in this season of renewal to keep our own hope alive in our midst at church, in our hearts and in our homes. May it be so.