There’s nothing new under the sun

A woman in Georgia killed her children and husband and then phoned the police to come and get her. It was a tragedy running on our Twitter feeds and Facebook timelines. It was instantly accessible calamity that could make one think the world was on the verge of an apocalyptic collision course with depravity.

But, it’s my thought that the world hasn’t gotten worse, it’s just more informed. When I’m tempted to fret over stories of terrorism: people being run over in England or beheadings on YouTube, I remind myself that there is really nothing new under the sun.

A smart man said to me that a massacre in the 1600s would take months to be reported globally to another part of the earth. What about the brutality of the Salem Witch Trials? There were two world wars in the span of almost 20 years. Since that time there has been waves of democracy and civility spread across lands where iron-fisted rule was once the way of the times. Sure Russia has become increasingly treacherous in its actions but what else is new? King Solomon, the wisest man to ever live, wrote in the book of Ecclesiastes that nothing is new under the sun.

Maybe as a society we’ve become less censored, less repressed. And in some cases the visuals we see on the nightly news give us the impression that the world has gone mad. But we can’t let images of war-torn countries eclipse the pictures of humanitarian aid in third world countries or this city coming together in the midst of a natural disaster. Those visuals are the ones that I hold on to.

So before you go and look at the world as half empty remind yourself that the world is only as good as the person you are. Maybe you don’t kill, but you probably gossip and lie. I know I fail in those areas as well. I hope that I’m hitting close to home. I’m challenging myself in this, too.

My goal isn’t to diminish the atrocities of these present day crimes and debacles but it’s to shed light that we shouldn’t see the world with fear colored lenses. What I’m saying is this world is only as good as the good you bring to it. Like Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Avoid complaining about the way things are and identify areas of life where you can make a difference. Often times we depend on politicians or pastors to be the change agents that we think the world needs but in this age of technology and lightning fast information consumption, change can happen in the blink of an eye.

We can look to our last two presidents as examples of the power beholden to the masses when change is at stake. In Barrack Obama, we had a man elected president with little Washington D.C. experience. He took down one of the most powerful political machines, the Clintons, on his way to becoming the first black president of the United States. Whether you voted for him or not there was something explosive about the change that took shape in his ascension to the presidency.

Not to be outdone, our current president, Donald Trump shocked the world when he came in as a Washington outsider and change agent who questioned the status quo of politics as it has been. He shocked millions in defeating (once again) the Clinton political machine.

These last two presidents represent what is beautiful about this world. It’s become more unpredictable. It’s become more connected and maybe more informed. People that believe this world is half empty will have a hard time seeing any change as good but I encourage them to not be afraid of what is on the horizon. Death, violence and crime may all be prevalent but in comparison to some of the more gruesome, heinous and barbaric practices in our history books, there is nothing new under the sun.

Chandler Collins is a staff writer for The Southeast Sun and Daleville Sun-Courier. The opinions of this writer are his own and not the opinion of the paper. He can be reached at (334) 393-2969 or by email at [email protected].