ARE WE LOSING OUR
HEART?
I am having more and more conversations with people who are
overwhelmed by what’s happening in our communities, country, world. The News inundates us with repetitive stories
of calamities from hurricanes and tornadoes, fires, floods, to mass murders,
threats of WWIII. Newscasters repeat and
repeat the crazy tweets of an unhinged President who threatens those who
disagree with him, insults war veterans and disabled people among others. Meanwhile, Servicemen are killed in Niger,
thousands of people are hungry and without water or electricity in Puerto Rico,
deaths are rising. We watch over and
over again as our President insults football players for “taking a knee” during
the Star Spangled Banner. Meanwhile, he
continued to laugh and joke with FOX News’ Sean Hannity while a Retreat
Ceremony was happening at a military base.
It is too much. Many are
beginning to cry “uncle”.
Many have stopped watching or reading the news, as the enemy
of compassion shows itself in pity, both for the victims of the disasters and
for themselves who feel like they are drowning in a flood that never ends. “I can’t take it anymore.” “There’s nothing I can do.” I sense and hear people’s anxiety rising as
their voices rise in volume or speed; anger and disgust in their tone. And I’m concerned about myself and others who
watch and listen, trying to feel empathic, but feeling more and more the
dullness of indifference and aloofness that is the enemy of empathy. As our minds and emotions are being
overwhelmed, are we losing our heart?
Again it is a friend who has provided me with the inspiration for this blog. I recently read her blog. There
were things in her blog that I understood completely, and there were solutions
she’d reached that made me cry; some wounded me deeply and all made me think and reflect. She often put into words what I have been struggling with and trying to express. .
“Thoughts
and prayers are what we say when we don’t know what to do
and
when we want to be seen as doing something.
They are what we say
when we
wash our hands and throw the troubles of others to the divine.”
I have limited my TV viewing and newspaper reading. I’ve limited my time on Facebook and don’t do
twitter. Yet I sometimes feel mired in
helplessness and the guilt of not doing enough that competes with the question,
but what can I do? I agree with the first line of the above
quote from Sarah's blog, but I disagree in part with the rest.
If our goal is to be seen as doing something, or if we are washing our
hands of troubles and throwing them to the divine, we are not truly
praying.
Prayer as I’ve come to know it is action. The only appropriate action at times may be
heartfelt prayer as we go deep within to meet our Divine Center and join that
Center with others around the universe.
We may pray for insight to see what we are to do, and pray for the strength
and courage to do it. Sometimes the
answer to our prayer is to do nothing—to wait, to plan, to connect with others
who have a workable plan. Sometimes that
is the action needed. If I am truly
praying actively, the strength and courage will build, with visions of where
and what is needed to be done. I will be awake and open to readings, to people, to appropriate actions that I might not have recognized without taking time for intentional listening for guidance.
My friend has been hurt by the institutional church, as have
I also. We have both grown through our
experiences and reached seemingly different conclusions. But have those conclusions been so
different? Near the end of her blog she
says:
“Thoughts
are silent and impotent in themselves. Prayers are,
by my
accounting, not actually feeding the hungry, clothing the
naked,
rebuilding Puerto Rico, or bringing back the life, health
and hope of
those who found themselves in an impromptu war
zone
instead of a concert. Thoughts and
prayers may comfort us
when
nothing else does, and that is indeed good.
But what thought
and prayers alone cannot do is save the
world from the harms
humans
wreak upon it.”
Those jobs are up to us as
co-creators. It’s up to us to create
a society that screams ENOUGH with violence.
It’s up to us to push our representatives in government to act in ways
that serve people, not greed. It’s up to
us to have hard conversations with those who regard any human as less. It is up to us to work for justice in our
homes, our home towns, our schools, our nation, and abroad. It is up to us to demand that we feed the
people of Puerto Rico, rebuild Houston, and Orlando.. It’s up to us to never let another Trayvon,
Tamir, Philando be killed because of the color of his skin. It is up to us to speak, to act, to act up,
to act out, and to live fully what we think and for what we pray. We are the thoughts and prayers of our world
in action.
My friend, has not lost her heart and we need heart. We need the heart to hear and see, act and
live in this world, however hurtful and dangerous it seems. We need the heart that keeps our head up, not
buried in the sand. A heart that enables
us to stand back and see what is happening and not just complain and pity and
throw back insults, but to join with others on making our voices and our bodies
count as we take our place in healing a soul-sick world. We may not do big things, but small things
add up. Our voices matter whether it is
speaking to a crowd or one-on-one with a neighbor or friend who regards anyone
as less because of color, sexual orientation, disability, or nationality. Our voices matter when we write to our
congressmen and women, people in power in churches and businesses. Our bodies matter when we show up at town
meetings and other events for peace and justice.
Do not lose heart. We
need yours and all the hearts we can get.
THE OLD APPLE TREE AND ME
I, too, am old. 
