The end of the year, the winter solstice and family birthdays always remind me that we’re at the end of something and the beginning of something else – a convergence of old and new. Normally, it’s a time to review the passing year and prepare for the next. But the last six years have been unlike any that went before. How should we think of them? Our world has changed. The emotional, political, geographic, even the biological tectonic plates we relied on have shifted.
Climate change has brought floods where floods were rare (Western Europe and Arizona), multi-year droughts have depleted our reservoirs (Shasta, Powell, Lake Mead), raging wildfires have destroyed unimaginable amounts of forests and taken out whole residential communities (California and Australia), catastrophic tornados have attached themselves to the ground for never before lengths and devastated everything they touched (Kentucky), shootings have come to neighborhoods never before touched by violence (mine), our nation’s capital was attacked by domestic terrorists (January 6, 2021) because the outgoing US president was determined to retain power by overturning a legitimate election (Trump). Police continued to shoot black citizens while a 17-year-old white vigilante armed with an illegally purchased AR-15 gunned down three protesters before being acquitted of all charges and celebrated by right-wing groups as a “patriot” and “hero” (Kyle Rittenhouse). Worst of all, a lethal virus was loosed on the world, killing 800,000 Americans, while its eradication was effectively prevented due to its politicization by right-wing media and anti-vaccers.
