Step by Step

I'll admit, some of my favorite fiction tends to be a bit on the nihilist side of the spectrum.  I enjoyed Battlestar Galactica (the reboot) with it's Ecclesisates sounding: "Everything that is, already has been, and everything that has been will be again."  I liked the recent show True Detective, and the idea that "time is a flat circle."  But ultimately in most of these works there must be a way out of the desolation and meaninglessness, in Ecclesiastes, which is one of my favorite non-Jesus containing books, the way out is the sovereignty of God over the vanity of human existence.
I think it's true that history tends to repeat the same sorts of arcs and narratives, but I wonder sometimes if the repetition is more a result of the persistent and rather un-creative nature of human sin.  Empires rise and fall, and each one, at some point, claims the blessing of whatever god they happen to like the most.  Most gods do not outlive their empire, except one: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Maybe it's because the God of the Bible was never particularly impressed with empires, or even with worldly success.  Maybe it's because that God persistently picked the underdog, the least of these, the last in line.  Maybe God actually understands the nature of mortals; makes sense for the Creator to know how we work right?
There's this root on the trail where I walk regularly, I know exactly where it is, yet somehow, more often than not, I trip over it. It's in my groove, the place on the trail where I just sort of naturally walk.  I just catch my toe, mind you, I don't go sprawling off the trail into the lake, but it's just enough of a stumble to be annoying.  The only way I avoid it is to consciously think: watch that root, and actually move out of my "usual" track.
Sin is a lot like that root, in that it's usually not a surprise, once you've been around that block a time or two, you know exactly where you're going to trip, and the only way to avoid it is by an act of willpower.  I think we can learn from history that way too, looking at the roots others have tripped over in the past.
The danger of believing too enthusiastically in human progress is that we fool ourselves into thinking the roots have moved, but honestly they don't.  The roots are always the good old deadly sins: lust, greed, pride, sloth, gluttony, vanity, and envy.  They can bring down individuals and empires alike.
However, when one looks at the arc of history more optimistically, you see that we are in fact making some headway.  We generally acknowledge things that certain things are bad: slavery, racism, torture, etc. even if we are a long way from stamping them out of existence, we at least name them as evil.  We also develop a more consistent global idea of what is good: freedom, equality, human dignity, even if we don't always live into the ideals.
In order to make meaningful and lasting change, you must capture both the heart and the mind.  You can legislate behavior and force people to act a certain way, but unless they internalize the values behind the change, they will probably break rules whenever they can get away with it (think speed limits).  The roots really don't move much, so you have to instill an awareness of where they are.  It doesn't mean we can't learn though, it's just that we learn very slowly.
We move so glacially slow that sometimes it seems as though human progress is a myth.  Progress defined as overcoming sin in general?  That certainly is a myth, but if you look at specific examples you see places where the ice is cracking apart.
Look at the place of women in our society now, compared to a century ago.  While true equity in all aspects of life is still a ways off, we have certainly come a long way baby.  We have more work to do on a global scale, but here in Western culture I can honestly tell my daughter that nothing is going to be out of bounds for her because of her gender.  She will be able to fully participate in society as her skills and gifts allow, she will be able to live a full and rewarding life, even if she never "finds a man."  Do you realize what a radical step forward that is?  Even though there is still progress to be made, we are so far ahead of where we were that it's hard to deny that there is some sort of movement.
The progress we've made is certainly tenuous.  As I mused yesterday, we're probably only a few malfunctions away from being thrown back into the dark ages and probably consequently back into tribalism, feudalism or some such older system, in fact there are significant and dangerous forces at work in the world which seem to yearn for those bad old days.  In fact, it's probably naive to think that we're not in for a pretty big stumble sometime soon.  The odds are not in our favor.
Then I remember that God loves a long shot...