In so many ways our world and society seem to be functioning in the wrong way. So many people are having to leave their conflict-torn countries. We hear of armaments being refined not to make things better but to destroy big scale. Every day we are shocked with sex scandals, burning forests, global warming, rocketing property prices and people who wish to die.

In Malta many people have given up and are switching off their news channels. We don’t know who or what to believe. We are victims of spin and helpless in the face of the people who hold wealth and power.

People running our institutions are also failing us. At all levels we hear of so much corruption, weakness, doubt and greed. Be it Fifa, the Church, Wall Street, developers, police and politicians. The story goes on and on. Like a fleet having lost its compass, we seem to be pulling in so many different ways.

Not all is doom and gloom. We have much to be thankful for. There are still many caring people and an awesome planet to be enjoyed.

However, we need a great rethink about the way we’ve been doing things. We have come a long way and things are changing and developing so quickly that we cannot keep up with how they are affecting us.

Whether it is new technologies, dumping of old values, shifting of demographics, ways of generating wealth, lifestyles, ecological changes and handling social media… we are caught on this train whose collateral damage or gain is difficult to measure or control.

That we may arrange our society’s dysfunctionality and that we may remove the overwhelming sense of anxiety, disillusionment and uncertainty I feel that we need to rethink society and our perspective to it. We need to ask ourselves the perennial question, as many before us have asked: what are we here for? What is our purpose?

The key is finding our common purpose or purposes from a Creator’s point of view and collectively work towards achieving them. That, I believe, will bring out the best of our society. But we have to place all the pieces on the table and shuffle them until we get the best plausible answer.

When one considers how everything around us seems to have a purpose and follows it in an orchestrational precision, it would be strange that we humans don’t seem to have common purposes that tie in with creation.

The pieces or facts are that ours is a unique planet. It provides us with immense beauty and intelligent design. We seem to be the only ones in this immense universe. We can appreciate its vastness, understand a lot of its laws. We are creative.

Notwithstanding the strength of governments and those who wield power today, the real power is in the laws of creation which we all have to succumb to

We have discovered so much of this creation’s marvels like colour, music and mathematical relationships. We are so free to cause change, to follow new ways. Free to build or destroy. We are so awesome in our bodies and even more in our minds. We can feel, hear, taste, smell and see. We are gifted with memory, with feelings, emotions, senses and so many creative, cognitive and physical abilities.

It seems to me that with this baggage of qualities and abilities there is only one narrative that points to our purpose. That narrative we find in the book of Genesis where God created all that we see and do not see and then let us in to co-create it with Him. This gave us our first purpose.

If we co-create, if we enjoy such marvels and if we acknowledge this loving God, it seems to draw us closer to the transcendental experience of joy which would give us our third purpose.

It would make sense that an awesome Creator shared with a people this wealth of creation. We don’t have to rely only on faith and the Bible but science, reason and philosophy lead us to our purposes. But alas this is not how it is interpreted. Very often we have been trying to fit the pieces which just cannot harmonise the picture.

Throughout the ages we have had so many civilisations, tyrannies, feuds, religions and philosophies. We have had democracies, oligarchies, monarchies and dictatorships. We have tried communism, capitalism, liberalism and conservatism besides the multitude of leaders who believed they were the ones sent by a deity to lead. Today we have the advantage of looking back with a wealth of knowledge and experience.

If we accept that there is God and that we are here for those purposes, then it follows that our schools would need to teach, not just for the sake of knowledge, but for the purpose of appreciating a Creator.  We would learn much of what we learn for the sake of co-creating this earth as a piece of art and enjoying it. Every time we build a house we would do it not just for the sake of having a place to rent or live in but we would build in a beautiful way to glorify the beauty of creation and God.

We would need to remind ourselves that every breath we take and every shade of colour that we see is a gift meant to help us fulfil our purpose on earth. Whether we are 20 years old or 90 years old we would still have a purpose. The whole perspective to having children, using our media, tackling problems and every aspect of our lives would change.

The way our society would change is unfathomable. To our list of isms like communism, fascism and capitalism we would have to add Kreationism. It would be different from creationism because it does not deny the evolutionary element of humans.

Kreationism would be a lifestyle. Intertwined with Catholicism and other religion we would look at religion not just as a salvific gospel only but as a natural holistic good willed way of doing things to rectify the ailments of our society while achieving our earthly and eternal purpose. On a personal level, at a group level, at a national and international level the vision could be one.

A thinking society is no mean feat but I think that there lies the real solution to the many seemingly unsurmountable problems we face. Notwithstanding the strength of governments and those who wield power today, the real power is in the laws of creation which we all have to succumb to.

Kreationism is already the leading force of this earth which is waiting for us to be developed further. Let us try to work in tandem with it and its Creator as Kreationists to make ours a pleasant stay on this marvellous planet.

David Pace O’Shea is an observer, thinker and well-wisher for a better society.

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece

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