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When you’re face to face with somebody, searching their eyes for value, what is it you’re looking for? How do you determine who has value and who doesn’t? When you’re looking at the faces of your neighbors or strangers alike, what is it about them that finally makes you affirm their dignity?

We live in a world in which people are still being devalued for their skin color and the people they sleep with. I thought we left this kind of behavior back in kindergarten, when we were children still learning what it means to be human. God, it depresses me to think about how deluded we are when we think we’ve grown up as a people only to fall back into the same kind of behavior. And since depression and I are such good friends, I should know what depression really means.

Some of my favorite movies as a child were films set far in the future, giving glimpses of human and alien societies across the universe. Think Star Trek’s vision of a utopic, united future. I also loved the films set in dystopian nightmares. Think Escape from New York or Planet of The Apes. Both types of films have lessons for us in the present, for one of those fates awaits our species in the future.

Take a moment to center yourself. Pause and breathe. Then, I dare you to try as hard as you can to imagine how big, wide, and beautiful this whole universe can be. Stars exploding in brilliant colors we have no words for. Planets dancing around each other in gravitational harmony. The universe is still expanding, but we have yet to find intelligent life out there. So far, it’s here. Only here.

Here, on this fragile earth our island home, we are alive together. We are sharing this unique moment in UNIVERSAL history. Not just human history, but the entire 13.8 billion year history of the universe.

With such a rare and unique existence, don’t you want to do all you can to ensure our collective survival? Actually, I’m not interested in merely surviving. I’m interested in our species, our planet, thriving as we enter a better tomorrow. I’m interested in living my life in such a way that I can look myself in the mirror at the end of the day and be proud that I worked as hard for my neighbor’s success as I did for my own.

I’m turning 40 this year. Given some health challenges I’ve had in my 30s, I’m guessing that I’m at the halfway point of my life. In the 40 years I’ve been alive, there have been times when it seemed like our society, and societies around the globe, really were committed to cultures of diversity where everybody can thrive as a whole person. It is an indisputable fact that the state of the world looks a lot different than that hopeful vision right now.

I hope when I’m an old man, I’ll be able to step outside of my house and survey wonders the likes of which I could have only dreamed of. I want to die knowing that the world I’m leaving behind is a better one than I inherited. I can’t do this on my own. Nobody can do this on their own. But together we can. Together we must. I want to die in a utopia, not standing in a bread line, mistrusting everybody around me. I know you want what is best for everybody too. At least, that’s what I’m going to tell myself.

Chris Adams is the Rector at St. Peter’s Epsicopal Church in Washington.