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. 

A Reflection on The News

October 13, 2017

  

What, exactly, is “the news”? For me, it used to be something that I heard snatches of on the radio, or sat down to watch at 6 o’clock or maybe 11 p.m. if I stayed up that late.  If I thought about it, I felt proud to live in a country with a free press, where journalists worked to uncover and reveal “the truth” about events in our lives.  I read the morning  newspaper daily and worked what I could of the crossword puzzle.  I was informed, but not excessively so.  Lately “the news” has felt overwhelming, and I’m feeling a creeping anxiety that I know is not healthy.  I’ve tried my favorite way of sorting out my feelings and thoughts—journaling, but I still struggle.

Last Friday in our writing class, a classmate read an essay she had written.  It expressed well what I had been trying to uncover and said what I want to say.  I came home and started rewriting what she had said, using my words to make it mine, adding a bit and subtracting a minor detail or two that did not fit me—she uses electronics and reads more newspapers than I do..  She has given me permission to publish our reflections on my blog page in the hopes that we can start a conversation with others on this subject.

In recent years the pace of the news has been building up, until last year when I become more acutely aware of nearly continuous and repetitive news coverage—often flashing on screen as “BREAKING NEWS…”  I began to see more and more stories posted and reposted by like-minded friends on Facebook.  Most of the posts were things I agreed with, although I occasionally talked back angrily to the post on the screen that represented a political opinion different from mine.  I felt proud and hopeful that a well-educated woman with excellent credentials and a desire to work with all people was running for our highest political office.  I didn’t agree with everything she said, especially when she called some people who didn’t support her “deplorables,” but we all make mistakes, right?  No one is perfect.  I was also proud of many other women who were running for offices in their states.  I didn’t always agree with everything they said, but mostly I listened and found that for the most part we shared common goals.

As the presidential race of 2016 progressed I began to check the news on my tablet and on the computer.  This was new behavior and I alternately cheered my candidate and groaned as a man I didn’t support positioned himself to be her opponent.  He seemed to be getting an enormous amount of negative attention.  His name showed up everywhere.  Cameras followed his every move.  Journalists seized on the foolish things he said and seemed to repeat them endlessly.  At first, he seemed like a joke, and it was entertaining to read about his gaffs; about all the times he misspoke.  But I soon became uncomfortable with the way he and his activities seemed to dominate the news.  The newscasters no longer seemed to be talking about policies. He made daily combative comments on Twitter, a form of social media that I had dismissed as something the younger people used for quick messages to friends, or a tidbit of  gossip—the way my friends and I, in times past, used snail mail or passed notes to each other in school.  If some important issue was brought up, his tweets seemed to ricochet all over what was being reported, and the reports became about him, not about the issue.  

My friend, who originally shared this piece told me she began to worry as she recalled something her Dad once said:  “Get out there and make an impression on people.  It doesn’t matter if it is a good impression or a bad one.  If people remember you, you will end up having influence over them.” 

I began reading everything that came across my Facebook feed—booing and shaking my head at the inane things I was hearing.  I also read bits and pieces from the New York Times and other newspapers, though not a lot.  My eyesight makes it difficult to read newspapers anymore.  I listened to PBS, ABC, CBS, and MSNBC, and some Fox News and CNN.  I began to be drawn to the evening news shows where an anchor would flesh out the day’s stories along with knowledgeable commentators.  At first it was enjoyable and refreshing to watch smart, reasonable people analyze what was happening.

But this was all happening to the drumbeat of “breaking news” and somewhere along the way I felt like “the spin was drawing me into a media rip-tide”.  I was confused and perplexed.  Had my desire to stay informed become an addiction?  Was the news becoming toxic?  Were my senses being dulled by daily assaults on my values and sense of decency?  When is enough, enough?

When reporters uncovered a plot by a foreign government to manipulate social media to further polarize people in our country I realized I was witnessing a new way to conduct warfare that had nothing to do with guns.

The opinion writer Peter Wehner writes:  “Objective reality exists, truth matters, and we have to pursue them with purpose and without fear.”  Well and good, but it is getting harder, it seems, to discern objective reality.  Wehner also reports that people have a tendency to attach to news that confirms to what they already believe.  He cites a physiological response where a “feel-good” chemical, dopamine, is released every time we agree with others.  I thought about those I know who warn me against paying attention to acquaintances with conservative beliefs.  I admit to feeling uneasy about some of their conservative viewpoints.  Conversations with more liberal friends are more reassuring.  But when I listen to people with opposing views, I sometimes wonder if all of us are paying too much attention to the news too narrowly.  I wonder if I pounce on the opposing sides’ mistakes too eagerly.  I suspect I am somehow complicit as I sit in my comfortable home in my comfortable neighborhood, and I ask myself what is my purpose in these last years of my life?  How can I make this world a better place?

Are there ways to stand at the periphery to get a clearer look at what is happening in our country?  How do I embrace my beliefs more firmly and find a way to act on them?  Stay tuned.  My questions, like the news aren’t in any danger of diminishing.  I will undoubtedly keep reading and listening, though I’ve cut done my time doing so.  I hope I will do this calmly, looking for signs that signal strength and courage in a democracy that rises to meet the challenges, political and natural, that the media continue to reveal.