Everybody Is Exhausted

The chaos of life and its collision with technology and tragedy has more of us feeling drained, frazzled and emotionally overrun.

Put simply: We are exhausted.

What’s to blame? The list is long — and growing, experts say.

Wildfires, terror attacks, rising tensions with North Korea, racist rallies, political investigations in Washington, the non-stop barrage of presidential tweets, more and worse mass shootings from Las Vegas to Florida, a tsunami of sexual harassment accusations, the role of Russians in our elections, climate change, red state-blue state division and not one, not two, but three of the worst hurricanes on record — including one that nearly blew Puerto Rico out of the Caribbean Sea.

Put together, and it’s understandable why exhausted Americans are limping along and running out of gas.

[Keep reading. . .]

The article points out that, objectively speaking, things are going fairly well for Americans.  The economy, for example, is strong.  I would add, though, that it doesn’t help when the stock market soars, only to collapse, whereupon it climbs back again.  The quick sequence of contrary emotions–euphoria, followed by panic, followed by confusion–is just not conducive to mellow feelings.

I know that some people have stopped watching TV news–whether Fox or MSNBC–have sworn off talk radio, have cancelled their FaceBook accounts, and are withdrawing from the information universe.

Does this describe any of you?  Why do you think things have gotten to this point?  Any suggestions for coping with our national nervous breakdown?

Faith, of course, helps.  For one thing, it can give us perspective.  This world really is alienated from God and thus from reality, so of course it is “vanity, vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2).  When we see absurdity, we can despair, if we think that’s all there is.  But if we know that it is part of a sinful temporal order that passes away, throwing the eternal order in high relief, we can laugh at it.  Though overt sin–school shootings, sexual transgressions, casual cruelty–is nothing to laugh at.  But we have a Judge who will make all things right.  And give us rest.

Photo by Jessica Cross, “Exhaustion,” via Flickr, Creative Commons License