“Grave moral danger accompanies the subtle but debilitating sense of powerlessness and despair that lurk when one recognizes the magnitude of suffering connected to how we live. Where we experience no hope for change and no power to move toward it, “the way things are” becomes “the way things simply must be.” If I see no hope for different forms of global economic relationships and no power to move toward them— even in small ways— then currently prevailing economic policies, practices, and structures become, according to my reality, inevitable. I am lulled into accepting the existing order of things and satisfying my compassionate urges by helping individuals or small groups escape from poverty. Drained away are the will and capacity to enter into movements aimed at uprooting its causes; lost is the impetus for seeking more just and sustainable forms of economic life. Herein lies the peril of this poisonous ingredient: lost hope and perceived powerlessness.”

Moe-Lobeda, Cynthia D.. Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation (p. 98). Fortress Press. Kindle Edition.

So true. This hits me today, as I picked up this book again, searching anew for something to grab onto as I quite consciously FEEL the effects of what this passage describes. Indeed, I may have put the book down months ago when I was , perhaps UNCONSCIOUSLY being plagued by the feeling of being overwhelmed by the seeming inevitability of the structural evils of 2017, continued on into 2018.