When the World Is on Fire: Anger, Judgment, and the Call to Love

These days, it feels like the world is burning — not just in wildfires or wars, but in our collective emotional climate. You can feel it in the headlines. In the protests. In the shouting matches online. In the quiet exhaustion of those just trying to keep going. There is so much anger, so much division, and so many people desperate to be seen, heard, and understood.

I’ve been sitting with this lately — the hate, the fighting, the pain — and asking myself: What is all of this really about?

Anger as a Symptom, Not the Root

As a trauma-informed social worker and educator, I know that anger is rarely the root emotion. Anger is often a mask for grief. For fear. For powerlessness. For generations of trauma that never had a place to land.

When people lash out — verbally, physically, ideologically — they are often protecting a deep wound. They may not even know it’s there. But the body does. And it acts accordingly.

Judgment: The Easy Way Out

This brings me to one of the most challenging — and transforming — teachings in Scripture:

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”(Matthew 7:1-3, NIV)

Judgment is tempting. It gives us the illusion of control. It lets us categorize others as “wrong” so we can feel “right.” But it severs connection — the very thing our nervous systems are wired for. Judgment protects our ego while preventing us from healing.

Jesus wasn’t telling us not to discern or set boundaries — He was inviting us into radical self-reflection. Into humility. Into the uncomfortable but holy work of seeing our own blind spots before calling out another’s.

The Simplest, Hardest Commandment

Amidst all the chaos, I return again and again to this:

“All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind...and love your neighbor as yourself.”(Matthew 22:37–40, NIV)

It sounds so simple. But in a world where pain often masquerades as power, where trauma can look like rage, and where the “other side” feels threatening — loving your neighbor (and yourself) is revolutionary.

Love as a Nervous System Intervention

Here’s what I’ve learned from both my faith and my field: Love is not weakness. Love is regulation. Love is resistance.

When you choose compassion over control, connection over condemnation, you disrupt cycles of trauma. When you pause to breathe instead of react, you lower the temperature in the room. When you choose to see the human — not the label, not the rage, not the politics — you create space for healing.

So… What Do We Do Now?

If you’re reading this and feeling overwhelmed, I want to offer you this:

• Breathe. You don’t have to solve it all today.

• Check your own “planks.” Where are you tempted to judge before you seek to understand?

• Return to love. Not the soft, sentimental kind — the fierce, resilient kind that sits with suffering and still says, “You matter.”

The world is hurting. But it always has been. And in every generation, people like you — rooted and resilient — rise up to be healing agents of love, truth, and grace.

You are not powerless. You are not alone. Let’s choose to build bridges, not barriers.

Even now. Especially now.

~Dr. Abigail Rebeske

Founder, EmpowerED & Thriving

Rooted & Resilient