When we map the connections from situations of crisis back into our homes and communities, they can cause us pain and frustration. The evidence, however, suggests that there is a chasm between our personal beliefs and the impact of our collective actions on the larger world. For example, we continue to buy bananas and coffee, despite evidence that they are generally grown on plantations stolen from indigenous peoples, that their production dumps toxic chemicals on the earth and into the water table, that their laborers work at unsustainable wages and have no land on which to grow basic foods, and who, if they protest, are persecuted by militia trained and armed by US foreign aid. Even as our national, ethnic and religious communities help to secure our prosperity and identity, these often come at the expense of others who stand outside those boundaries. This book has highlighted some of the numerous challenges that now are displacing traditional borders and assumptions.
Old questions have new contexts.
The human desire to form community, once expressed in the tribe and validated by a religion, now faces the global village. Other commonly-held assumptions are also under assault. These interchanges connect us to the world's problems, and bring those issues into our homes and religious communities. The challenges seem to make unreasonable demands on us. It's certainly tempting to re-warm the American Dream, to retreat to comfort, entertainment and technological wonders, to beat the dangers back around the corner and out of sight.