The story of Cain and Abel is followed by an overlapping set of stories about a mammoth flood that only a boatload of the old ecology lived through. The story begins with tales of such extreme estrangements from Profound Reality that Profound Reality, poetically speaking, is said to have become sorry to have created the human species.

However, one family and its leader, Noah, had continued to love realism just enough to get Reality’s attention. So Reality shared with this small group a secret: prepare a big boat, for a flood of chaos is arriving to wash away the whole landscape as you know it. So Noah, the original outsider, built a boat on dry land to the consternation (even scorn) of all his peers.

This is a symbolic story. We don’t need to go looking for a fragment of the true ark. This is a parable about the operation of history itself—our own history as well as happenings long ago. Profound Reality eventually floods unreality with a washing that is only anticipated by our various dunkings in our own personal River Jordans. Sometimes, our unrealistic living stores up geography-wide cultural establishments of estrangement from Profound Reality that are so great that they reach serious reckonings. Noah and family is a symbol of the truth that we are still “here” in spite of all those historical downers.

For example, looking toward our own future in 2019, we can already see forerunners of the impending consequences of our huge fossil-fuel burning. A Reality-baed reckoning is coming our way. Ark building is the realistic command, if we love having a viable planet for our and many other species.

One of the arks already proposed to the Congress of the US is a design plan colorfully labeled the “Green New Deal.” This plan has a lot of pieces, but the basic idea is a several trillion dollar government jobs program focused on the jobs needed for the transition away from fossil fuel burning. The idea is to get going on this needed change without dumping the costs for doing so on the working stiffs.

Unlike Noah’s time, this coming flood is not a secret to our establishment. Our establishment is lying about what they know to be true. The coming flood is being openly denied, the need for change is being misrepresented, and our Noah-type awarenesses are being drowned out a din of lies, paid for by the fossil industries and bowed to by greed-afflicted political puppets and by way too many apathetic fools for whom any big change is too disturbing to even think about.

In spite stories about rainbows, the sternness of Profound Realty is still intact.

My ark design may have different compartments than yours, but this ark cannot be built by one family.

Though the climate crisis our biggest emergency, we are also facing many lesser, more clearly seen floods, like the one called “Unaffordable Healthcare Insurance” for over half of the population of the United States. An ark design plan has already been drawn up for the US Congress called “Medicare for All.” This is a real solution to the real problem, with only one downside: needing to entirely eliminate the cause of the problem. We face a choice between continuing with current healthcare insurance establishment or launching an entirely new system for this nation. As long as the private insurance companies are part of the healthcare insurance system, we do not have an “Affordable Healthcare” solution. Medicare for all is an ark. All the other plans do not float, even if they tread water.

Obamacare was a step forward, and we do not want to undo that step. Obamacare plus a public option for Medicare would be another step forward, but it would not be an Affordable Healthcare solution. Only Medicare for All will cut in half the untenable costs of healthcare, and cut drug costs even more than that. No part-way measure does that. This is true because no part-way measure deals with the problem—namely that the present system that pays huge salaries to health-insurance CEOs, huge profits to health-insurance investors, huge amounts of needless administrative costs and super-complicated paperwork and advertising—all to provide an inferior product that provides a little coverage as possible for the highest cost as possible. As long as this old system is part of the next plan, we do not have an ark of affordable healthcare!

Government is the administrative payer for our highway system, our post office, and our fire departments, why not for our healthcare insurance system. There is no other way to actually make affordable health care a right to every citizen.

Do we really want to pay twice as much for a totally private sector run postal service. Do we want a privately administered park service, police department, or fire department. Some things are best administered by a good democratic government. Healthcare affordability is one of those things. If we want to call that socialism, then let’s have at least this much socialism.

Having some things administered by government does not exclude having other things ordered by a private sector competitive system. But even here a democratic government must provide the rules that make a private sector competitive system truly and fairly competitive.

The only time that government is the problem is when government is run by a few of largest corporations for the sake of their super-wealthy owners. Whether we like language like “radical capitalism” or “democratic socialism” is a matter of personal thought preference. The real stuff of political choice has to do with our Noah’s arks of real solutions for the floods that threaten us most.

Shall we talk about too many assault rifles on the streets? Government, exclusion, licensing and records keeping is an ark of solution for this dreadful flood.

Shall we talk about rampant run-way racism? Government crack down on hate groups and home-grown terrorism is an ark of solution for this dreadful flood.

Shall we talk about super-biased criminal justice administration by poorly hired, trained, and paid police forces. Government rules, training, and accountability is an ark of solution for this dreadful flood.

For all these floods and others, serious government programming is the ark we need.

Dear neighbors, we who live on this North American landform are already hip deep in the waters of chaos. We need some arks, and we need them now. Noah was a rather reluctant saint. That is what we need—millions of reluctant saints. We need them now. In our case, being Noah-like saints means draining government-offices that are swamped with reactionary greed-heads, plus putting our own Noah-hood in charge of the ark building.

This is called “love” for self and neighbor in the context of a love of the overall Profound Reality that urgently confronts us.