If, as St. Paul wrote, “The whole world is guilty,” how can we not be inundated by the world’s sinfulness and indifference? Searching for an authentic personal response, we feel adrift and passive, unable to find a point of connection with what seems to be enormous social and historical forces operating beyond the influence of a single person.

How can I authentically respond to genocide, systematic torture and terrorism, war, unfettered corporate and national greed, the degradation of the environment and the myriad of other evils that plague the world? Is an authentic personal response even possible? Or must I pretend that my life and my choices are hermetically sealed and that I have no consequential effect on the condition of the world?