We've Got Work To Do!

And still we say it ain't so! The unfolding tragedies in Texas point to a world which has always been dangerous to wee humanity planted on its surface, but who have in the last many centuries turned nature to its collective will.  But always that sense of control vanishes when storms rage and waters rise and despite all our gall we see humans cast about in floods which absorb the evidence of our existence. We cling to life and to each other in these moments of strife and in many instances we find the best of ourselves. Countless public servants earn that title when they toil to save citizens from the ravages of nature, a nature turned enemy against which all of us can strive together to fend off. One man in particular, a policeman in Houston lost his life when despite his wife's pleas he went out into the terrible rains to do what was needed. His only words simply were "We've got work to do."

That is a mantra we all should cleave to, one which should guide us in the years to come. We suffer a collapse of faith in our institutions because those we have place in the roles of leadership misunderstand their responsibilities and turn the power they are given to merely serve their own immediate ends. The government of the people and by the people must serve the people, and those we elect must see themselves as public servants and not our masters. The good work being done by countless folks to save those who need saving must be recognized and even celebrated, but when the waters recede and the immediate dangers dwindle, we must not forget our responsibilities to our mates in this world and the generations to come.

The climate is changing in ways which will beggar the imagination in years and decades and centuries perhaps to come. We must gird ourselves for these changes and find leadership which will not deny the obvious and strike out for the new territory which must be discovered. We must change what we know, we must alter what we have and we must do it together. As the man said my friends -- we've got work to do.

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