Called to be Creators In the Midst of Destruction

Some days, it feels like every part of our government is being destroyed, from the inside. A few long-standing federal programs, like USAID, have been dismantled completely. The Center for Disease Control saw the recent departure of numerous esteemed scientists and medical professionals, folks unwilling to participate in the outright destruction of the country’s public health infrastructure.

The Department of Education is being torn down, brick by figurative brick, the unqualified Secretary of Education having been appointed to oversee its demise. President Trump has suggested shuttering the Federal Emergency Management Agency by December, at the same time funneling more money into immigration enforcement, wrecking the lives and livelihoods of immigrant families and communities.

The once-solid economy, too, is being destroyed, the chaos caused by tariffs and a soaring national debt (thanks to the wrongly-named Big Beautiful Bill) devastating people’s finances—save, of course, for some billionaires.

Surveying the last eight months of Trump’s second term, it’s hard to identify any part of America that his administration has attempted to build up rather than destroy.

Of course, some folks will point to projects that undermine that assertion, like the ballroom President Trump wants to build at The White House, or the Rose Garden Patio, inaugurated this weekend when Republican dignitaries gathered to enjoy dinner on a space paved with Italian marble. But even that newly-created dining area required the destruction of Jackie Kennedy’s Rose Garden, the removal of trees and rose bushes and historical relevance, all for what Newsweek called “a concrete courtyard.”

Demolishing this historic space is part of President Trump’s broader efforts to erase parts of history that don’t confirm to his view of the world, from removing displays in The Smithsonian about his two impeachments; to muting information about the horrors of slavery; to potentially removing “anti-American” content from the U.S. Holocaust Museum.

Destroying evidence of atrocities in U.S. history will not make them disappear.

What’s happening nationwide—the wholesale destruction of so much in our country—makes me think again of my home community, especially the three-year stretch when so much of our community’s goodness was undermined by people dismantling our thriving school district. A school board made countless decisions that appeared to weaken our schools, most notably by hiring an unqualified superintendent to run a complex district, then refusing to hold him accountable for his mistakes. A local media ecosystem worked to seed distrust in our community, turning neighbors against neighbors by spreading conspiracy theories with no grounding in truth.

Some of our community’s destruction abated when a new school board was elected in 2023, its members committed to building up, rather than tearing down, all that was good here. Even still, it will take a generation for our community to heal from the damage that was caused in a few years’ time, especially as there are people here who still seem to revel in chaos and destruction, rather than in the communal effort to create something good and beautiful.

We are called to be creators of beauty, not to celebrate destruction.

I just embarked on my 25^th year of teaching English at George Fox University. When I read about so much going wrong in the world and in my own community, it is easy to feel despair, to wonder what good it does to teach creative writing while the world burns. But as I interact with students passionate about storytelling, I’m reminded that God calls us to be co-creators of everything that is right and beautiful, and that in creating, rather than destroying, we are doing the work to which we have been called.

Recently, I reflected on this notion in an article which appeared in Christians for Social Action. Here’s a little bit of what I wrote:

Beautiful stories amplify the resilient spirit of those who seek and speak truth, and who refuse to be broken by those demanding fealty.

In reading about the resilience of others, we become more resilient; in reading about hope in the midst of despair, we become more hopeful; in reading about those who work for justice in their time and place, we are also inclined to seek justice.

Storytelling allows us to foster humanity, which is what our communities need so much more of right now, even as our government intends to destroy so much of what is good. And right. And Holy.