Faith in the midst of collapse
Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of questions that are some version of, “How do you maintain faith in a world filled with violence, chaos, and injustice?”
It’s a fair question. Our world is full of crises—from climate disaster to rising authoritarianism, increasing wealth disparities, war, famine, and genocide. For those of us in the U.S., the past few months since Donald Trump’s second inauguration have been pure chaos—green card holders being deported unjustly, a radical dismantling of the federal workforce, and escalating tensions with nearly every nation. And we’re only three months in!
It’s enough to overwhelm anyone’s nervous system. It’s easy to lose hope that justice is coming.
Yet, I find myself as hopeful as I’ve ever been.
It’s not just hope; I also feel fear, anger, and confusion. I see the suffering, especially in marginalized communities, and the escalating violence against them. These are real, painful truths. And yes, suffering will intensify as our world collapses. Because it is collapsing.
A grounding read for me recently was Hospicing Modernity by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira Andreotti. The book argues that modernity itself is in collapse, with the systems and worldviews we’ve accepted as “normal” coming to an end. This resonated with me—it felt like an acknowledgment that we are not just seeing the decline of American democracy, but possibly the end of Western liberalism, colonial-capitalism, and even nation-states. The foundational ideas of individualism, human supremacy, progress, and control are all crumbling.
This can be destabilizing. Of course, when the systems we’ve relied on our entire lives are collapsing, fear arises. Watching the dismantling of government agencies, the erosion of rights, and the breakdown of democratic processes is deeply unsettling. But here’s the thing: We’ve been sold a myth. We’ve been taught that these systems are the only way society functions and that without them, we’d face a post-apocalyptic dystopian world.
The truth is, these systems have never truly served us. Our food systems create health crises, our economic systems breed vast inequality, our criminal justice system perpetuates violence, and our political systems concentrate power in the hands of a few. These systems aren’t maintaining order; they’re failing us.
The good news? These aren’t the only systems we have either. As modernity collapses, life-affirming systems are emerging everywhere. You won’t see much of this on the news, but if you look beyond the noise of social media and invest in community, you’ll notice these projects thriving.
There are land-based initiatives like Soul Fire Farm, the Sogorea Te Land Trust, Ekvn-Yefolecv, Earthseed Land Collective and the community that I live in, Canticle Farm, which are reconnecting people to land, reclaiming indigenous cultures, and creating new, sustainable communities. Many of these initiatives are part of broader mutual aid networks, where communities come together to care for one another, moving beyond charity to build new ways of supporting each other outside of modernity’s systems.
Spiritual centers are integrating faith practices into activism, as more people are leaving institutionalized religion and engaging in earth-based practices as well as joining communities like East Bay Meditation Center, the Faith Matters Network and Buddhist Peace Fellowship.
Cooperation Jackson are experimenting with solidarity economies, and initiatives like the Possibility Alliance and Nonviolent Global Liberation are experimenting with the Gift Economy. Healing practices, from plant-medicine journeys to somatic work and Internal Family Systems, are reshaping how we understand wellness. Healing justice projects, like Black Therapists Rock, the National Queer and Trans Therapist of Color Network, Freedom Community Clinic and the Fireweed Collective are making healing more accessible.
More recently, we’re seeing the rise of death doulas—individuals who support not only individuals preparing for death but also help communities cope with the “death” of ecosystems and larger systems. My own partner works with the School of Unusual Life Learning (SoULL), a space that fosters new ways of thinking about life and death.
There’s a growing movement within nonprofits to rethink power dynamics and organizational structures, as seen with the Sustainable Economies Law Center and the Nonprofit Democracy Network. Other groups, like the Good Grief Network, the Work that Reconnects, Holistic Resistance and Dinner Party are reminding us of the power of grief, while Ecoversities Alliance and modalities like Democratic Education and Unschooling are offering new ways of learning and teaching.
Nurse logs I saw on Bowen Island, British Columbia, during the Movements of Belonging gathering.
The emergence of these projects is accelerating. They are creating a world that will thrive long after the systems we’ve grown accustomed to have composted.
Some of these groups have been around for decades, but the rate of new initiatives has skyrocketed in the past 10-15 years. And these are the systems that will continue to care for us.
As Jeanne Denny from SoULL reminded me: Death is not the end. Death is not in opposition to life. Life does not end with at death. It is a part of life, and it signals the birth of new life. As we grieve the passing of the systems we’ve known, let us remember to breath and also notice the birth of so many new systems all around us.