Civilizations survive dark seasons not by rage or denial, but by faith, restraint, and moral courage.
I recently did something I usually avoid: staying up too late and wandering into the digital sewer we politely call “the conversation.” X feeds, clips, comments, rage-bait—this endless cycle never ends well. By the time I finally shut it off, it was clear that the despair and resentment social media produces are not a bug—they are the feature.
The world you see online is stripped of context and proportion. Everything frames itself as an emergency, demands outrage, and ignores wisdom. Human suffering becomes ammunition; children become slogans; hatred dresses itself in moral clarity. If you sit with it long enough, you begin to feel foolish for believing in decency at all.
God is not dead. He is not asleep. And the story is not finished, no matter how much the algorithm wants you to believe otherwise.
This thought returned to me after revisiting a poem I hadn’t considered in years: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Christmas Bells.” Often quoted for its opening lines about peace on earth and goodwill toward men, the poem was written during America’s Civil War. Longfellow’s country fractured; his son died in battle; his wife perished in a tragic accident. The poem captures the raw reality of despair.
The early stanzas describe hearing church bells repeat promises of peace—until cannons thunder, violence drowns out the song. Longfellow writes it felt “as if an earthquake rent the hearthstones of a continent.” That is what civil war feels like from within.
This line has stayed with me for decades. We are not there yet—but pressure is mounting. Anti-Semitism has returned openly, not whispered but justified. The Jewish people—history’s most reliable early warning system—are being threatened again, and too many voices respond with silence, excuses, or applause. We swore we would never allow this to happen again. Now it is unfolding across the West.
Simultaneously, the world edges toward wider conflict. Alliances harden; borders matter again. But no obvious force can stabilize the chaos. America is consuming itself. Europe is exhausted. The rest of the world watches to see what happens next.
This is the stanza most people skip: Longfellow does not rush to hope. He admits despair: “There is no peace on earth,” he writes, “for hate is strong, and mocks the song.” Honesty is not weakness. Pretending everything is fine when it isn’t is how civilizations collapse quietly.
The final stanza matters because it follows despair—not denying it. Longfellow writes:
“Though the bells are silent now,
The story is not done—
It will end in hope, though it takes time.”
This is not cheap optimism promising a quick end to suffering. It is a conviction insisting that evil does not get the last word. This distinction matters now more than ever.
Hope is not pretending the algorithm is wrong. It is recognizing that what trends rarely endures. The quiet courage that holds families together, the decency that stops violence when no camera is present—the faith that steadies people when institutions fail—these things do not go viral but prevail. History does not turn on outrage; it turns on character.
Every civilization surviving a moment like this does so because enough people refuse to surrender their moral bearings. They do not deny the danger or excuse the evil. They do not outsource conscience to crowds or machines. They decide, quietly and stubbornly, to let their lives reflect that truth still matters.
Longfellow wrote this poem while war raged around him. He did so because despair was real and hope was necessary anyway. The bells did not silence the cannons overnight—but they reminded him—and us—that order is not an illusion and truth is not negotiable.
God is not dead. He is not asleep. And the story is not finished, no matter how much the algorithm wants you to believe otherwise.
