New Dawn

I actually wrote this entry on a bus ride from Findlay, Ohio to New York City last week. I finally have the blog set up and this is my first official entry. Stay tuned for more...

Over the years, I have occasionally contributed to the blogosphere, primarily in an effort to finish some classroom assignment as I completed my graduate work. However, I never seemed to have any other purpose to blog. That has now changed. As I ride across the state of Ohio on a bus full of students and parents heading toward New York City, I find a new sense of purpose awakening within me. It is now 6:45 in the morning. We left Findlay, Ohio at 5:15 this morning driving toward the dawn of a new day. I find this an appropriate metaphor for my own awakening – an awakening to new ideas about the world’s social order and my place in it. I also have a revised focus for my dissertation and eventual body of work.

Lately, I have been reading about the effects of capitalism on the environment, and I have come to realize that as a Christian and world citizen, I have a responsibility to this world including the people living in it and the ecosystem that surrounds us. For quite some time now, I have felt that I have some greater purpose to serve and now I know what it is. If I can, as an academic, contribute to the betterment of this world, then it is my privilege, and yes duty, to do what I can to make a difference. For academics, that work is often accomplished through words and the exchange of ideas, although my hope is to effect praxis as well. For what good are words if real change does not result? At this point in my life and career, I do not have an answer to how change can be affected, but I am sure that change is certainly possible. I also know that this will not be easy change as the current social order is certainly well-embedded in the psyche of this nation and change is never easy. However, that only means that we must work that much harder in order to see the world benefit from our work.

In the end, it is my hope to leave my children with a better world than that within which they were born. That vision includes a world where equality of all humans is more of a reality than just a dream. It is a vision that includes an eradication of hunger, a chance for all humans to participate in meaningful work, and the elevation of humankind to a higher level. This is neither a trifling matter nor an easy task. It will take the efforts of many to accomplish this goal, but I know that I am not alone. There are many others of my ilk and God is at work through all of us. It is through His grace that I am in this position and I must undertake this responsibility with the utmost care. For the first time in my life, I know that I am truly blessed and as the dawn of a new day arrives, I find myself thankful for the experience of simply being and the knowledge that my purpose in life is now established.