Believing in a World We Haven’t Yet Seen

Some years ago, I went to a farm in rural Virginia. To get there, you drove past dilapidated barns, land for sale, abandoned property. Then, you arrive at this beauty of a farm with miles of Ireland-green grass and blissed out cows.

I was with a small group and someone asked the farmer, Why are you succeeding when everyone else around you is going bust?

The farmer - my memory has given him overalls and a piece of hay in his mouth, neither of which he likely had - said, I have the same land everyone else does. Get the same sun, same rain.

I do stuff a little differently, he continued, am willing to try stuff the other farmers won’t try. I tell them what I’m doing. But they don’t buy it, say it couldn’t work on their land. Which is funny since their land’s no different than mine. They just can’t believe we’re doing as well as we are.

Really, the farmer said, it’s not, “I’ll believe it when I see it,” it’s “I’ll see it when I believe it.”

And isn’t belief such a fundamental lens through which we see the world? Believe the world is filled with greedy no-goods in it for themselves, you’ll see it. Believe the world is made up of decent folks doing the best they can, you’ll see it.

So when people say the world you want to live in can’t happen - whether it’s a world with no pedestrian fatalities or pesticides or capital punishment or whatever it is - what they’re really saying is not that it can’t happen, but that they don’t believe it can happen.

We need not include these folks on our holiday card list.

It’s said that we’re the average of the people we spend our time with, so prioritizing time with fellow keepers of the faith seems useful.

Those who share our belief that a more just, generous, gentle world is possible.

Those who can help make that belief more durable, the pathways to it more creative, so it doesn’t get shot to Swiss cheese by the status quo defenders.

Martin Luther King spoke about having “faith in the future,” refusing to give into the temptations of despair. And those temptations are many.

But the world will not be moved forward by despair, cynicism, standard bearers of the status quo. It has, and will continue to be, moved forward by folks who know the future is still up for grabs, and who commit to the hard, humble work of shaping it.