In the Bible the story of Noah starts with the people of the earth being immoral, God says he will destroy the earth but he will save Noah, he tells him to build an ark (a kind of boat) and that he will make a flood and destroy everything on the earth except for what's on his boat, which includes his family and all the animals. He also tells him to build it over a period of time so that people will see him and they will be able to ask him and reflect on their behaviour and then repent.
I think right now we are getting warnings that things are not so good and that we should repent if we are bad and we should build an ark if we are good, metaphorically speaking.
So, what does it mean to repent? It means that you are ready to give your life to do the right thing and not do the wrong thing.
What does it mean to build an ark? Well, what is the nature of the waters that would engulf us?
The waters would be a chaotic and broken society, complete lawlessness in the world.
So, what would a boat be? A boat would be a community of those people who are willing to give their lives up to do the right thing. But the boat would also need two things. Just like a real boat needs protection from outside and a setup inside to facilitate life for a period of time while the floods happen, so too our metaphorical boat would need the facilities to survive the chaos that would happen around us.
Now, depending on the level of the chaos we would need a different kind of boat. For example, right now there is no problem getting food clothes and shelter, but when it comes to spiritual needs many people struggle, many people suffer from anxiety and depression or a lack of meaningfulness in their lives.
So what kind of a boat would that need? I think it would need mainly two aspects. One is doing business. Why doing business? Because:
1. For many people work is uninspiring and sucks the life out of them. By providing businesses that have meaning and treat people well it will help them spiritually instead of destroying them spiritually.
2. The boat would need resources to survive. The businesses can provide for that.
3. There is no point being spiritual on a mountain top where there are no challenges, if you want to be spiritually healthy you have to bring it down in to the real world, and work through straw by straw painfully working hard and figuring out how to do things in the right way and be successful.
And the other aspect is having spiritual guides. These people can guide you in ethics, relationships and your spiritual path. This is needed for individuals and for groups and for society as a whole.
And that would be an ark that is desperately needed today.
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