Hope

Yesterday's post was a diatribe on the topic of apathy, the lack of caring by a person for the others about them or society at large.
Let's look on the other side of the fence today. Even where you find apathy, there is always the chance to find hope. Where there is even one person who can see the world around him or her, there is the chance for change.
I have begun to see a lot of hope for the world our children will create from what we leave them. Children are learning about the mistakes that we have made, and learning from them. We may have been slow at first, to see the signs of what man has done to the world, but now that the ball is rolling, things will be done to make amends at a quickly increasing rate.
Twenty years ago, who ever heard of recycling? Now, every home does some part in conserving resources. We are creating newer, cleaner products every day, because people can see, and demand that companies give them that option. Sometimes it takes a little economic push to get people to overcome the inertia of the way they have always done things. Now, we care, and all sides of our society are feeling the push.
I begin to see the economy in a better light, despite what the news says about recessions. We are learning to do more with less. I have high hopes that the new industries of waste recycling, environmentally friendly energy and telecommunication (beyond the marvels that we have now) will eventually make a world where all of us can put our talents to best use, and not have to worry about where that next meal is coming from.
I can even foresee a day when war has run it's course. Violence may long be a part of us, we descended from hunters after all, but we will get past that. As harming others no longer gets us what we desire in this world, and the differences between us grow smaller, what would be the advantage of trying to destroy? Religious fundamentalism is the last thing that the world will go to war over. Even that will become too weak a reason to kill, in a few generations time.
By way of example, I give you the Protestant/Catholic battles of northern Ireland. It was thought that neither side would ever give up that battle, until one side had wiped the other off the landscape. Fighting has given way to talking out differences, and realization that there is more in common. The last generation of street warriors howl, knowing that the end is near. I predict the same for the Islamic Fundamentalists and the extreme right-wing Christian movements. We might have to listen to them whine, but in a few generations, they well go out, not with a bang of bombs, but a whimper of old men who did not get their way.
The world gives us glimpses of what it can be, if only we open our eyes and do what we know to be right. When each of us does that, there is hope. Every child born could be the one who makes that hope a reality. Does our salvation walk among us even now?