In the silly, wrongly interpreted hype about a Mayan celebration of the passage of time, I think it is very important that we not lose sight of those who are in need of our active compassion.

I am mindful of the many people for whom the world will end today.  People who will lose their homes, forcing them onto the streets and into a feeling of being a member of an outcast level of our society.  Women and men who will experience rape and violence of unspeakable kinds.  Children who will lose their parents.  Girls in the emerging world who will lose their opportunity to go to school.   Men and women who will receive the news that they are HIV positive or suffering from a terminal condition.  Parents who will lose their child.

This human experience is often filled with suffering, and ultimately it does come to an end.

The questions then are:  So what shall we do?  What is our responsibility—what is within our capacity to do—to be the embodiment of compassion for those for whom the world will end today?

I believe that the answers to those questions sometimes are to turn mourning into dancing, and ashes into beauty through the miracles of prayer, faith and healing.

And other times it means making a donation, volunteering, acting on senses of compassion and discernment when we know what we must do—even if sacrificially.

While other times the answer is simply to dwell, to suffer-with, to be present as a representation of strength through the night, and as an expression of hope for the dawn…of a new world yet to come.