The view from the top of Lookout Mountain is fantastic, isn’t it? Whether or not you can actually see seven states is of course a matter of debate, but to see the world spread out like a patchwork carpet of green trees and twinkling lights is always an inspiring sight. Most of the time, however, our perspective doesn’t seem to go much further than the view from Carter to the library in the fog. It’s easy to become so wrapped up in the happenings of the Mountain that we forget the beautiful and hostile world that surrounds us. We are no longer simply the inheritors of this world. We are now its builders and shapers.
A great many of the world’s great political movements have been engendered and sustained by students our age and younger. Right now in Hong Kong, hundreds of students are facing the possibility of death and serious injury every day to protest because they care so much about how the future of their city is shaped. Here at Covenant, the most important political issue is whether or not we should be allowed to play sports on Sundays. That’s an important discussion that needs to be had, but when balanced against the lives of thousands of beleaguered brothers and sisters in Iraq whose only defenders are Kurdish militias who not too long ago were considered terrorists, the outcome of a game of golf doesn’t seem that important.
I’m not advocating or espousing any specific opinion on these events in the world that God gave us to steward. I’m simply urging you as a Covenant campus to have an opinion on what happens beyond the bubble of the Mountain. If you don’t think the opinion you have matters to the world at large, think again. Actions definitely speak louder than words, but you don’t have to be a part of a protest to speak on the pressing issues of today. It’s so rare for a young person to care about the world these days that when you do speak up, people listen. People care what you think, especially if you know what you’re talking about. A definitive statement, collective or individual, grabs peoples’ attention. To quote V for Vendetta, “words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth.”
What I don’t mean is that you should become one of those people that post annoying polemics on Facebook in order to start comment wars. I’m saying that you should know enough about the world to be able to differentiate truth from bias when you read an article online, and read enough to see all sides of an issue. Be informed about the state of the world around you. We are told to go out into the world to be a light to the nations, but we can’t do that if we have no idea what they’re doing.