• Modelling how the Holy Family in the Gospels responded to VUCA times
    By The Contemplative Bard
    July 1, 2024

    We live in VUCA times. It is the age of Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Some analyst calls it RUPT (Rapid, unpredictable, paradoxical, and tangled) times. Peter Drucker referred to it in classical business literature as the age of discontinuity. In eschatological terminology, some Christians simply refer to it as the "end times", alluding to Marian prophecies of the coming chastisement and some prophetic books in the Scriptures that tells of the trying times before the second coming of the Christ.

    Indeed, there is no denying that compared to the last few decades, we are experiencing the convergence of several life-changing events that can potentially impact the whole of humanity in a big way. Climate change, hyper inflation, pandemic and bio-wars, obsolescence of democracy and human rights and the shifting patterns of governing bodies into authoritarianism, and the threat of another world war.

    Should Christians simply ignore them and have faith that G-d will protect them from harm or pray that these events will never come to pass?

    The experience of the Holy Family, to my mind, is the best example of the Christian response. Mary and Joseph were G-d fearing people who were submissive to the Will of G-d. And Most important of all, Mary carried with her the newly born Jesus, the Saviour of Humanity. King Herod ordered that all newly born infants be slaughtered so nobody can challenge his reign.

    How can things possibly go wrong? How can anyone stand against the Son of G-d? One would expect that the Holy Family will remain calm and stay where they are, do nothing, and an army of Angels will come down to surround and protect them from harm, right? or perhaps G-d will make them invisible so that Herod's army won't see them in their hiding place? or G-d will prevent King Herod from doing his evil plans?

    They scrambled and fled to Egypt the soonest while there is still time, to save themselves from harm.





    Whether this event happened historically or not, the Gospel writer told us the most logical response which is to his mind is an act of faith. Do what is humanly possible to prepare for the worst, and have faith that God will help you along the way of your plans. The Angel even appeared to Joseph and told him to flee to Egypt to make his family safe from slaughter. The Angel did not offer to make them invisible nor to send an army to protect them from Herod's soldiers. (Perhaps, it could have been different if there had been no time to escape and the Holy Family while going to a market encountered a drunk soldier who would try to kill them.) But No, there was a political event, there were rumours, and they have time to act and plan how to address the problem. The story also tells us that G-d can also give us guidance through messengers, inner/intuitive messages, or dreams, although the task is to use the gift of wisdom and discernment to determine if indeed it is coming from a Divine source.

    We live in the same situation today. The impending signs of conflict and trouble are everywhere. It is not something sudden or unexpected like an earthquake. Do we feel more valuable than the Holy Family that due to our faith, G-d or the "universe" will defy the laws of nature and laws of collective karma to prevent a catastrophic event from happening? Or due to our faith, an army of angel will come down to shield us from harm?

    I would rather go the path of the Holy Family. Not to be complacent or lazy, but to prepare for the worst and asking G-d for guidance along the way on how our disaster-preparedness plan will work in accordance to his Will. If it fails, at least, I tried. This is taking charge of my own destiny, while having faith that G-d will bring me to victory, if I'm worthy of it.

    There is also another way, that is through potent proactive collective action to prevent an event from happening, but that will be a discussion for another post.

    "Do your best, prepare for the worst - then trust God to bring victory"
    (A paraprhase of Proverbs 21:31 from "The Bible in Contemporary Language (MSG))

    ------------------ Image credit:

    Luiz, Jose Bernardes Ribeiro. (2016, Sep 15). Flight into Egypt. Capella dei Scrovegni - Padua. Under the Wikimedia Commons free media repository. From https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flight_into_Egypt_-_Capella_dei_Scrovegni_-_Padua_2016.jpg