The Real World and the Bubble

Death and destruction in Israel and Gaza.

Dysfunction and bad leadership choices in the US House of Representatives 

Another mass shooting, this time in Lewiston, Maine. 

It’s not a pretty world.

In our own little bubble people get up to live another day. If we remember, we are grateful for the beauty of nature around us, the food we eat, the schools that nurture our children, clean water to drink.

We reminisce over places that used to be here. We get excited about things that are to come. Sometimes, we worry about them.Will Columbia/HoCo still be the place we want to be? The place that we remember? A place we feel at home?

Every day inside our bubble we have reasons to be thankful and reasons to complain. No one claims this is paradise, except possibly realtors or the tourism folks. It isn’t paradise. Some folks struggle a lot.

But then I look at the world outside our bubble and shrink from the violence of it. The hatred and injustice. It is every small failure, disappointment, and imperfection we see in our own lives but blown up to an unimaginable size. 

This week it threatens to consume us. 

How much easier it is to cling to our tiny world. Post photographs of sunsets and autumn leaves. Complain about school buses or bike lanes or how things just aren’t like they used to be.

We know - - oh yes, we feel it to the bone - - that it is not a pretty world. But for God’s sake, let us our keep our bubble and a few illusions to cling to.