I find physical examples of redemption to be really potent and impacting.
When I see or hear stories of things that brought destruction being transformed into tools to bring life, it excites me and stirs hope in me more than I can easily express. Literal examples of Isaiah’s swords beaten into ploughshares are really beautiful to me.
A want to see more of them!
It’s made me wonder, what would it look like to have a culture built on that kind of redemption and restoration?
What if we collectively got purposefully creative about redeeming things used for death and destruction, to turn them into tools of life?
There are already plenty of accounts of people doing that really well: people have turned nuclear weapons designed to kill millions of people into fuel that powered cities for decades, or turned missiles into piping for sewage-treating eco-machines, or beat guns used in mass shootings into gardening tools to help feed hungry people, or transformed large chunks of polluted and desertified land into lush productive food forrests.
These stories bring me hope. And make me think more of that kind of thing is not only possible, but worth pursuing, both in my own life and in the world.
What would it look like to have that kind of “Culture of Redemption” in more and more places?
What would it look like to to become a society that is collectively, actively transforming things that have caused suffering into things that bring life?
I don’t know, but I think it’s a dream worth pursuing!
Time for us to get creative.