My blog posting has taken a brief pause due to a short trip out-of-town, but that’s not the whole story. I have had the beginning of a post staring at me for over a week. I’ve known what I want to say but I have been stymied by avoiding another related topic about which I don’t know what to say. And that topic is the current state of our national politics.

I haven’t written about this because, for one thing, this isn’t a blog about politics, and secondly, because I don’t think I have anything unique or helpful to contribute on the topic. But let me expand on that a bit so you can see where I am coming from.

There is no question that the United States is in a political mess. Amazingly, it is now reasonable to ask whether we are witnessing the beginning of the end of democratic government. Yet there are those who would question how democratic our politics has ever been and others who say democracy’s decline began long before this. It’s been ten years, for example, since Jimmy Carter declared that the US had become an oligarchy, rather than a democracy. And over sixty years ago, retiring President Eisenhower gave his prescient caution

… against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

Little did Eisenhower know how serious that threat was, or how little heed would be given to his warning.

Carter’s observation points to the fact that our crisis is a systemic one rather than one of party or ideology. As I wrote last time, we have a strong dualistic tendency to divide the world into white hats and black ones, good guys and bad guys. Increasingly, we believe that if “my party” can get back in power, then things will be right again. But I have come to believe that our party politics are a part of the problem rather than the solution.

And this isn’t just true in the US. Most of the Western democracies are in one stage or another of political and economic crises. The governments of Starmer in the UK, Macron in France, Merz in Germany, and others in smaller countries are deeply unpopular but with little expectation by voters that their replacement will make much of a difference. The main reason for this cynicism is the recognition around the world that politicians are now much more influenced by the wealthy who support them before, during, and after their time in office than by the voters who elect them.

It’s very hard for most of us to appreciate the scale of the crisis. One example: here in Santa Fe, we will elect a new mayor next week. Probably the single biggest issue has been the city’s lack of affordable housing. Reading voter comments in various places has shown that most believe there is a “Santa Fe solution” to the problem. There isn’t, because it’s not a Santa Fe problem. It’s not a New Mexico problem, or even an American problem. I just read that in the recent national election campaign in the Netherlands the most controversial issue was (you guessed it) lack of affordable housing.

Housing is but one of many seemingly unsolvable global puzzles. Affordable health care is another of the basic life needs becoming harder to find, and energy, food and water are not far behind. There is also growing awareness that these fundamental resources are increasingly controlled by wealthy elite investors and that governments are unwilling to challenge their dominance over them.

A subject that used to be found only in dystopian novels and quack prophecies is now becoming mainstream: civilizational collapse. Probably the first “respectable” report on this was by the Club of Rome more than a half-century ago called The Limits to Growth (1972). Wikipedia summarizes it bluntly:

The report’s findings suggest that, in the absence of significant alterations in resource utilization and environmental destruction, it is highly likely that there will be an abrupt and unmanageable decrease in both population and industrial capacity.

The report was based on upon an early use of computer modeling. In the years since, both the original sponsors and independent groups have reexamined the original report and its projections many times. Surprisingly to many, and distressingly, almost all have affirmed the report’s original findings. They have also agreed that the world is following the report’s “business as usual” scenario which does little to address the limitations which are leading to a coming economic and environmental collapse. Forty years after the initial report, one of those follow-up researchers, Australian physicist Graham Turner, concluded that we are now in a situation where “preparing for a collapsing global system could be even more important than trying to avoid collapse.”

Turner’s depressing but pragmatic view is increasingly common among climate scientists regarding our environmental crisis and among social scientists and historians regarding our political and economic quagmire. It is also how I have come to understand my own role, as small as it is. In my case, however, the preparation I am pointing to is very different than what Turner and others have in mind.

I have no expertise in politics, economics, or environmental science to offer anything helpful in those areas. My expertise (such as it is) is with regards to the human soul and spirit. And on an individual basis, spiritual preparation for a looming societal implosion may be the most important preparation we can make.

So, as I’ve said, I feel I have little of substance to offer in this blog regarding the climate crisis, economics, partisan politics, or what the late columnist Drew Pearson called “the Washington Merry-Go-Round.” I have my own ideas and opinions, of course, but that’s all they are.

I should add that I am not saying that people with a religious or spiritual orientation should not be involved in activities trying to ameliorate our various problems: meeting human needs, confronting social injustice, participating in electoral politics, remedying environment degradation, and so on. Everyone should respond to situations they encounter in our world today in ways they believe appropriate.

It matters, however, where such responses come from within us. Responding from care and compassion or responding from anger and malice will have very different results and will affect ourselves very differently. My concern is with who we are in this world, at this time. Yet the answer to that question cannot be an identity based on time or circumstances. Rather, it is more important than ever that we know our true selves as transcending time and space. We must know ourselves and experience our lives as Eternal. Only such a sense of self will enable us to know a fundamental peace in the midst of whatever disorder might come our way in the future.

Now, with this out of the way, I can continue with the post that started me down this thought-path. Stay tuned.

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