The Meek and The Earth

And the Lion and the Lamb shall lie down together...

“⁴Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. ⁵Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. ⁶Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” Matthew 5:4-6

It’s a common theme. “The meek shall inherit the earth.” “Those who were last shall be first.”

In our current society, the idea that the meek will get anything but thoroughly stomped on is a happy lie the quiet and gentle people tell themselves when they’re being beaten into the dirt yet again. Sometimes it’s fear, sometimes it’s compassion, and sometimes it’s just easier to stay quiet. I know that for me personally it’s fear and lack of confident knowledge that holds me back from saying anything, from trying to ‘fix’ the world. I try in my own way, but always with that feeling of hopeful despair. 'How can I possibly make a difference?'

Even the word meek shows the depth of the degradation of this idea. Once upon a time, Meek meant gentle, kind and courteous. In the dictionary now, this is considered an ‘obsolete’ definition. The definition of Meek now is submissive, spineless and compliant. What a strange turn of events. Maybe it’s not the meaning of the word that has changed so much as the collective agreeance that kindness is weakness, being gentle requires you to be a door mat, and those that are courteous are only going to be taken advantage of.

Once upon a time, it was understood that the meek – the gentle, kind, compassionate and loving – would be valued and respected. Who knows, maybe it’s still within our grasp. Perhaps the world will change drastically enough that all those who are first – the overbearing and the ambitious – will become last. So far, in my short and sheltered 24 and a bit years on this planet, I’ve seen the cruel and the ambitious get ahead over and over again. I’ve seen it in my own life. When I am cruel and grasping, I get further in my life than those times I am kind and caring. Those who know no shame have more chances to achieve the current success metric.

You can see it in the way our society functions. Corporations rule our existence. The moment we step outside ourselves, we are bombarded with advertisements, suggestions and orders to buy this, do that, think this. ‘Big Business’ throttles the little guy and gets away with it. How did we get to a point where a tobacco company can take on a country in a law suit and win? It’s legalised murder. Simply because the little people have no money and therefore no power. Just look at the news, social media and the internet to see how many reports there are of business taking on the people and grinding them into the dust. All in the name of greed.

But there is a tsunami of change coming. It has been building for longer than I've been alive. It’s resonating throughout the human collective – more and more people are ‘waking up’ to the idea that commercialism is just a different type of slavery. Society is slowly shifting. Illusion is no longer the theme of the day. There are people all across the world standing up to say that it’s not right. 

It’s in our fiction and our entertainment, it’s in our news and in the back of our mind when we look at the world around us. It’s intriguing how our Pop culture reflects our changing beliefs.

We had an ‘attractive’ vampire craze a few years ago - a symbol of rape and power over others, willing or otherwise. Vampires suck blood and leave a husk, or a slave in its place. They are the ultimate apex predator, preying on us with all the caring of a man eating a steak. Even the romanticised vampires are dangerous and deadly. Is it any wonder that we liked the idea of giving ourselves up to something stronger by saying ‘I’m not good enough, take me’? It’s an enticing idea for some people. Particularly young women (like me) who are trying to find their place in the world and wishing there was someone to protect them, keep them safe from having to think.

After that, we progressed to the zombie phase, where society were happy to be mindless shambling followers, going through the motions exactly as they were told. We got mesmerised by our technology and gave up on free will and conscious thought. We wear, eat and buy what we’re told and follow the rules as laid out by big corporations. The closer we get to the ‘norm’ – the success metric that our society lives by; owning your own house, having kids and a stable job – the further into the trap we get. I don’t think we’ve entirely left this phase. I think there’s quite a way to go until it happens.

But now we have the superheroes, standing up and fighting back against impossible odds, never giving up no matter how regular people look down on them. We have those who will not go silently

into the night. They fight for even those who revile and threaten them. They fight for what is right, no matter the cost, without reward or hope of gratitude. They exist only to save the world. Whatever the threat may be. This is the stage where we wake up and start seeing that these heroes are not aliens from other planets, but real people like you and me. All of them have something that gives them power, placing them a step above us, but not out of reach. It’s a fine line to walk.

There are cases where they can trap us just as easily as the idea of zombies or vampires – we see the world in terms of other people stepping up to take on our problems, so we sit back and let it happen. But there is also the flip side. Some heroes inspire greatness in those with no powers. By giving us an example, showing us the way, they tell us it’s ok to strive. It’s ok to be more than you are. One of the defining traits of a hero is their ability to stand up and say; ‘No matter what you do to us, we will never completely stop fighting. We will come back again and again, beating odds that would crush anyone else.’

Obviously these are all just symbols, to be interpreted however you might want to see them. There is much more to the story than any one person can ever see completely. The truth can gleam and glimmer at us, but we still see it only through the cracks of our own psyche. Each person will see something different and call it their truth.

My rather abstruse point here is that change is happening now. Maybe the meek will not inherit the Earth, but then again maybe they will. It depends on what choices we make as a society. What ideal, what image are we going to fit our future into?