If you’re like me, today’s climate in America feels like one of constant negativity. I feel like I can never escape news of terrorist attacks, school shootings and just general evil within the world. All this negative energy becomes a drag and affects my mood and, frankly, my hope for the future.

The song “Who’ll Stop the Rain” by Creedence Clearwater Revival is one that I think perfectly encompasses this feeling. It reflects on the way sometimes it feels like the “rain,” or the problems in our world, never end. Though we offered many solutions, they are all wrapped in “golden chains,” made to look promising while actually being useless. Everything looks bleak, and it becomes easy to lose hope.

But that feeling doesn’t have to last forever. Even through the horrible, frustrating, confusing and tragic moments, we can still have a hope for a better world in the future.

SHS has been going through an interesting season for the past few weeks. President Trump’s visit brought many people’s feelings about our polarizing political climate to the surface, both on social media and at school. With this brought arguments, severed ties and all around tension. Sometimes it feels like SHS has been turned on its head. But is this the way it’s going to stay? The Byrds say otherwise.

Their song “Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)” is a spin on the biblical passage Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. Regardless of spiritual or religious beliefs, this passage is one that offers a remarkable truth; that there is a time and a place for everything and that changes will always come. One of my favorite lines in the song is “A time for love, a time for hate / A time for peace, I swear it’s not too late.”

Thinking back to the events at the beginning of this month, and the division that engulfed many of our students, I find it a comfort to hear these words. Many things were said, many stances were revealed, many opinions changed and the atmosphere became one full of tension, and some of that tension still exists today. But this is just another of the many seasons of SHS’s lifetime. When something divides us, we still come back stronger in the end.

Even if the events of the last month didn’t necessarily have a major effect on you, it’s hard to ignore that our nation and our world are crazy places, full of crazy things and crazy people. Within everything we experience is the chance to learn that there is a time and a place for everything. A time for love and hate, war and peace, dancing and mourning, laughter and weeping and winning and losing. The good is paired with the bad indefinitely, and both must be taken in stride.

To everything there is a season, and everything serves a purpose. Think of what bothers you about the world and remember that, with your help and willingness to make a difference, this too shall pass.