Today Is The Day

Today is the day.

Today is the day Jesus washed the feet of the disciples and gave us the command to love one another, even to those who do not deserve it.

Today is the day.

I don’t normally pay much attention to the news. More often than not the stories seem to convey a message of “look at this – you should be outraged” but there doesn’t often seem to be much in the way of useful information beyond that.

The “outrage du jour” right now is around the video of the passenger being dragged off an airplane. People are calling for the crucifixion of the airline for allowing this to happen. We’re demanding a head to roll. We’re mocking, we’re sharing memes and videos and Twitter-slams, dogpiling on a sense of outrage.

Tomorrow it will be something else.

Next week we’ll forget about the airline and we’ll hang our fury on something that has yet to happen. Today our “how dare you!” is an airline. Tomorrow our “how dare you!” is what? Is that what we’re looking for? The next thing to be angry about?

We are an angry people right now. We have been for a while. We’ve been through a bruising, angry, bitter election and have lurched into a bruising, angry, bitter post-election. But this is just a symptom of something larger. It’s a symptom of dissatisfaction being fed a steady diet of rage.

We’re longing for something, obviously.

The “good old days”, perhaps? But the past only looks like that when viewed through the distorted glass of nostalgia: a lens that conveniently obscures the unpleasant facets of those days and magnifies the happier moments with a rose-colored hue.

Pretty, perhaps, but inaccurate nonetheless.

Today is the day.

Today is the day that we can recognize this does not work. It never has. It never will.

Today is the day we can turn our “how dare you!” into “how can I care for you?”.

Today is the day instead of saying “he had it coming!” I can say “what can I bring?”

Today is the day I can take the road less traveled by.

And that will make all the difference.

How can I care for you?

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