Volume 6, Issue 3B, November 1996

LET'S YEARN FOR FUTURE, NOT THE PAST

There is a joke which claims it takes five persons today to replace a light bulb - one to screw it in, the other four to say how much better the old one was. We are beset these days with nostalgia, but having in mind our well-developed capacity for self-deception, one might be wary of wallowing in such sentiments.
Being homesick for the past, to long for things as they used to be, is a very selective process. We fondly remember the "good old days" when prices were cheaper, life was less hurried, and society was more personal. We tend to forget the penurious incomes, the limitations of educational and medical programmes to help us. A lot of things weren't good about the "good old days."
Today we need a renewed desire to long for the future. Our word "future" derives from the Latin "futurus" meaning "about to be."

Perhaps we should coin a word, "futalgia", to look forward with hope and expectation, as a word to go with nostalgia, to look back with yearning for the past.
After all we stand on the threshold of an intriguing future, beckoning us to what may be the greatest and best days humankind will ever know. There is a possibility to use the helpful resources and technology we now have to create an ideal place and life for generations to come.
The rapid pace of change in our lifetime has sometimes seemed frightening, but the possibilities for betterment we face today can be exciting and enlivening. As a New Testament pastoral letter exhorts, "For God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but a spirit of power and love and a sound mind."
We are in position today to make gigantic leaps forward for the good of all humankind.

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"Religion NOW" is published in limited edition by the Rev. Ross E. Readhead, B.A., B.D., Certificate of Corrections, McMaster University, in the interest of furthering knowledge and participation in religion. Dialogue is invited and welcomed.