Stop the Insanity

There are days when it feels like the entire world has gone insane.

September 11, 2001 was one of these days. We weren’t around then, but we have every confidence that Dec. 7, 1941 – the bombing of Pearl Harbor – was one of those days as well.

Madness, psychology experts tell us, is a state induced by unpredictable negative stimuli. Predictable negative stimuli may make us neurotic but we’re equipped to handle it. The unpredictable type can bring on schizophrenia, psychosis, borderline personality disorder and politicians.

So is it any wonder that recent events have made things feel nuts? One day all is calm, the next some state-sponsored terrorists provoke a violent response from the Middle East’s only democracy. We have innocents being bombed in Lebanon to go with those under attack in Iraq and Afghanistan. A Jewish community center becomes the focus of rage. And conservative TV pundits decide to add to the mayhem by declaring that we are in World War III.

Are they Chicken Littles or just big chickens?

One of the favorite betting events in the Judeo-Christian tradition is trying to predict when Armageddon will arrive – even though we’re told quite explicitly that this is a no-no. Recent events have sparked landmark business in this proud tradition. Everyone from evangelical fundamentalists to the Lubavitcher Hasidim have added their “evidence” to the party. All of this adds to what used to be free-floating anxiety but now resembles a strafing run on sanity.

We at the Thinking Woman think we need to have a mother (or The Mother/Father) put a foot down and send someone to his room without dinner. It’s time to realize that we have a choice: We can take the path of love by serving the poor and distressed, truly living every day in expectation of the coming of the Messiah. Or we can take the path of fear and produce a bloody apocalypse as it is written, not in the Bible but in the national best-selling Armageddon novels.

All this focus on when it will happen and how effectively diverts people from our primary responsibility -- stewardship and service. Perhaps the world will end next week, perhaps next month, perhaps not for centuries. The signs have been interpreted as such in past centuries. But we cannot stop loving and caring for the world we were given. God, when he gave stewardship of the earth to man, didn't say that we could stop when we thought the end was near. Civilizations have been destroyed before, and the end did not come.

We must, like our forebearers, live our lives in the expectation of the coming of the Messiah, but not use it as an excuse to be irresponsible and selfish.

Like any family, we can choose to work together, heal ourselves and our world and end this madness. Then we can let everyone out of their rooms so we may all finally sit together at the same table as family. Or we can go forward with violence, horror and madness.

The choice is ours.