Finding a way through today

I am having a really hard time being in this destructive moment of the world’s history.

Part of it is knowing where things are going while wanting to have faith in a greater good. Part of it is knowing that compassion will bring us out of this cycle of burning each other in the name of our own prosperity while wanting to rage at the wanton injustice and corruption that’s infected the world order. Part of it is knowing how beautiful and generous money can be as an energy while seeing leaders reduce humanity and human life to transactions and “the bottom line.”

While I understand that these issues and dilemmas have been around for a long time, and we in the western world have been able to largely avoid them while our countries' leaders wheel and deal the lives of “others," they are now at our door, in our house, unavoidable. We can no longer pretend that they are not our problem.  So, how do we act as responsible, compassionate human beings in such a world as ours is in this moment? 

I don’t know if I have an answer. As I said, it has been hard for me to know. I would like to generate hope that we can make a difference in how we meet each day, each person—putting forth compassion, kindness, generosity, and tolerance, while not compromising our ethics or our voices. While I believe this is true, I’m finding it hard to be consoled by that in my own life. Am I making enough of a difference? How can I do more? In my mind, there is an urgency that’s calling for a type of action that sometimes feels equally destructive and unhelpful as that being perpetrated by the powers.

I’m trying to tell myself that it’s enough to strengthen ourselves and our communities to create something new, more vital, and more humane in the aftermath. To educate ourselves on what makes a good human, on our greater purpose here, on our shared experience, on our shared capacity for destruction and creation, on our interconnectedness as beings of energy, on our shared desire to avoid suffering. 

But is it? Is that enough in this moment when values, honor, integrity, and honesty are crumbling so readily on the world stage? I suppose it’s hard to feel we’re making a difference in the background when the stage is dominated by drama and “star” power. The impulse is to want to push back just as hard with something equally dramatic in order to reset the balance—to rebalance the powers in a way that supports, rather than destroys, humanity.

But then I remember that creation comes out of destruction. A violent storm rages through a forest, knocking down old growth trees. The aftermath gives a sickening, hollow feeling. The forest is no longer the same. But what we know is that these logs will nurse new life and, eventually, seed new trees. These nurse logs become an essential part of the forest cycle and the forest's evolution into a new kind of forest. While I believe in this metaphor, it seems weak today, as if we’re lying down while the destruction continues around us. And I suppose that’s what the trees experience, too. Seeding new life takes time.

So, how do we act as responsible, compassionate human beings in such a world as ours is in this moment? I suppose the closest I can get to an answer today is to allow myself to feel my feelings—my anger, fear, and grief—while knowing that, even if I’m knocked down as collateral damage, my words, thoughts, and actions WILL make a difference, DO make a difference, helping to tip our energy of interconnectedness in the direction of creation—of something new, vital, supportive, and maybe even sustaining.