Are you a spectator or a chaos reducer?

Mountain meringue and river ribbon, that's what I saw yesterday through the tiny window of a large airplane.  Just before the mountain meringue there was a cloud blanket.  It was white and fuzzy.  It looked like the Creator had swaddled the world. In the time it took to accept a cup of coffee, ragged sharp mountain ridges replaced view of the world blanket.  

Mountain meringue 2016

I looked down on the ridges with the fleeting thought that any unplanned descent would end disastrously.  Instead of dwelling there and creating terror in my head, I returned to the pen and paper on my seat back tray.  The Creator shaped those mountains and the Creator shaped me.  The sense of comfort in the Creator didn't last long.  It was chased out by a guilty struggle about the quantity of fossil fuel the airplane devoured as we soared above the earth. Then the guilt was replaced by wonder when the ominous grey mountains disappeared behind us and snow-capped peaks appeared.

As the world passed beneath my seat, my brain flew from climate change to war to violence.  I was reminded of the hundreds of children who were kidnapped in Burundi in November 2001. Why hadn't the mothers of the world joined forces and arrived in Burundi, en masse, to retrieve the children?  Why didn't we rise up in fury to reclaim the children? There were no answers, even at 34,000 feet above the earth. Being a spectator on the problems of the world from way up there was depressing and exhausting.  I wanted to find a wisp of hope, some relief from the enormity of the issues we collectively face.

The hope came in the melody and lyrics of a song called Breathe by Jonny Diaz that had been flowing through my mind all week. Chaos had been calling for the whole flight.  I needed to breathe, just breathe.  We would land soon enough.  Then I would be expected to once again do my part in my little corner of our magnificent world, one action at a time. No need to be paralyzed by the whole big bloody mess, just triage the parts closest to us and begin somewhere to reduce the chaos factor.  Will you choose to be a spectator or a chaos reducer?