Love Growing Cold

"The love of many will grow cold" seems such an apt description for the state of things today.

This coldness creeps through our culture and our politics; it chills both our personal and collective interactions.

I just watched a story about a group of kids who videoed a man drowning. They mocked his last moments until he screamed and went down for the last time. His death went unreported; his body was found 5 days later. His family was understandably appalled when the video surfaced.

If we read history and the news with an honest eye, it's clear our potential for inhumanity transcends culture, class, race, nation, gender, or any category we can think of.

If any of us thinks at any moment that we're immune, we are self-deceived.

That's just reality.

Think of how we react to flashes of humane treatment when they show up in our lives, & on our timelines; they shock and delight us.

Somehow, humane moments are the exception in our world, not the norm.

We forget how they feed our souls, how we miss them, how we need them.

Flashes of humane interactions indict us; they reveal how far away from our own humanity we can stray in our dismissive cruelty.

But they also carry a positive; they speak to who we can be.

Just as anyone can be inhumane, by God's grace, anyone can be humane.

This, too, is reality.

Be humane.

Increase the light.

One flash at a time.

- K.A. Ellis, Fellow for World Christianity at Reformed Theological Seminary