A tired-out proverb: You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.
The human condition. In a million different ways.
We are confronted with an increase in obesity and its related kinds of death, but we refuse to alter our diets. Instead, we foist the responsibility on food providers to tell us how much we’re killing ourselves with each bite — as though that has any chance of changing our minds.
We are confronted with war and poverty and famine and death all over the world and acknowledge them as horrible things, but we refuse to lighten our pocketbooks or fall to our knees to intercede or waste our time traveling. Instead, we encourage one another to support charities, relying on others to convey the good will we think we feel — as though the sentiment itself is going to make any sort of difference at all.
We are confronted with our deep inability to practice the behavior we know we should, and often demand from others, but we refuse to turn to the one thing that can save us from our spiritual death. Instead, we tell ourselves that if we are “good enough,” we will go to heaven, if we believe in it; or at least we will earn approval from our peers and make a difference in the world — as though any of us is capable of being “good enough” in front of a perfect God; as though “good enough” was something to shoot for anyway.
Our choices have an impact on the world that comes into being. Why do we pretend they don’t matter?
We are dying of thirst. There is water all around us. Why won’t we drink?
