When Hope Seems Lost

The world has been going to hell, the creek has been rising and life as we know it has been about to end at least as far back as the beginning of recorded history.  In the third century BCE the writer of Ecclesiastes bemoaned that there was “nothing new under the sun”; that all was vanity and futility.

The Roman emperor and stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius, whose Meditations, written while campaigning on the northern border of the Roman Empire, and whose honesty and sagacity have been an inspiration to many, wrote the following:

“Remember:
Matter: How tiny your share of it
Time: How brief and fleeting your allotment of it
Fate: How small a role you play in it.”

In the early 19^th century the Romantic poet William Wordsworth felt such alienation from the newly industrialized land of his time that he wrote:

“The world is too much with us; late or soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.”

Problems and the world weariness they can bring have an ancient pedigree.  What’s so different today?  Perhaps it is the sheer multiplication of pressures and difficulties both macro and micro, and the sophistication of modern communications that bring them immediately into our homes and into our lives.  I do not need to remind you of these problems but they might include overpopulation, pollution, finite energy resources, terrorism, war, a global economy in meltdown, and environmental degradation just for starters.  The impact of these problems in our individual lives can generate confusion, stress, illness, and anxiety.  The human condition itself is characterized by a nagging sense of separation, and the body’s susceptibility to sickness, old age, and death.

It does not make for fun reading but we need to take a cold, clear look at something if we are to understand it and begin to find creative ways forward.  Otherwise it can appear insurmountable or impenetrable, like a stone door slammed in our face.  We feel as if we have hit the infamous brick wall.

I have noticed that there are two common approaches to the problems we perceive.  The first one is dualistic.  We see ourselves as separate from others and look for someone to blame, a boogieman who we misunderstand, demonize and try to destroy.  This approach is inherently fear based and revolves around protecting us from an alien them.  We wage war on terror, drugs, poverty, crime but with little success because what we resist persists.  We battle disease and hunker down in our belief system of choice.

The other approach seems more unitive but is based on a simplistic optimism.  Problems are not real; they are illusory and can be transcended if we simply change our thinking about them.  It’s all God so it’s all good.  Perhaps, in an absolute sense, this is true, but it tends to short circuit the process by skipping over the difficult hits and denying their validity.  The Buddhist teacher Lama Surya Das refers to this tendency as “premature immaculation.”

For me there is a third, or middle path, beyond tenaciously clinging to our limiting beliefs or foolishly blissing out into a self defined nirvana.  The great teachers and wayshowers were examples of this third approach and fearlessly championed its effectiveness.  Jesus talked of being in the world but not of the world, walking the razor’s edge where God’s love, moving in us, meets the needs and the difficulty with a humble presence that transforms lives one by one.

The Buddha, awakened and enlightened, although tempted to leave the conditional world and enter the blissful states of the Void, instead turned back with compassion and chose a life of service.

What had they found?  That there is an end to suffering not by following a system that promises relief, or by finding a heavenly place beyond the vale of tears, but by seeing clearly into the nature of things.  They understood the truth of the statement often attributed to Kierkegaard that, ‘life is a mystery to be lived not a problem to be solved.”

And, although it sounds counter-intuitive, the importance of being alive cannot be over-emphasized.  My late wife encouraged others to have “no near-life experiences”.  Her statement, although amusing, points to the sad fact that we are rarely fully alive and therefore not fully capable of meeting life’s many challenges and opportunities.

Here, then, I offer four ways to increase that aliveness as a means to see more clearly and therefore be more available and more effective as precious human beings in this troubled world.

The first way is to embrace life fully in all its messiness, horror, joy, exasperation, and magnificence.  This means that we choose to set no boundaries on our curiosity and our love.  In this embrace the walls come tumbling down and the fears and misunderstanding with them.

Will Rogers famously stated that, ‘I never met a man I didn’t like’.  What a great example of embrace.  He did not take his lead from another’s behavior or attitude but brought his own expansive and enthusiastic nature to each interaction.  What he teaches us is that if we do so we are bound to see something to like and appreciate.  We move beyond appearances and into a shared commonality that exists at the heart of us all.

The second way leads naturally from the first.  It is in that welcoming embrace that we see beyond the dualisms of attraction and revulsion, of pleasure and pain.  We become the beholder, the witness, watching the play of forces and circumstances as they unfold.  We are not detached from or indifferent to the world; we are no longer mesmerized by it.  We have released the tight grip of needing it to be a certain way and receive the blessing of seeing with eyes unclouded by longing.

A year ago I had surgery to remove a tumor from my cheek. It was scary and there were many unknowns.  It was easy to get caught up in stress and fear.  It was also a time of intense aliveness, and, thankfully, the outcome was positive.  Lying on the hospital bed after surgery I felt a profound sense of surrender.  I was aware that my body was very small and in a weakened state, and yet I felt that my soul literally filled up most of the room.  This experience lasted for a couple of days.  I felt as if I was beholding both my body and the family around me with a great sense of love.  I was unconcerned about the surgery and experienced a deep level of trust that was quite beautiful.  I was given the gift of seeing a deeper sense of who I am.

The embrace that allows release leads us to the third way where we appreciate that we are not alone.  As I felt in the hospital bed, there is a presence with us and we can cooperate with it.  Calling the presence God, Spirit, or Consciousness or a hundred other names is not so important as feeling it in our hearts and in our gut.

When we feel and know that this presence is with us we become truly creative.  We naturally find answers where there were none before.  We have the power to forgive and be extraordinarily generous.  We confound expectations.

I know that creative initiatives are being made by people like you and me around the world that help sustain sanity and make a positive difference.  They are cooperating with a presence of possibility that allows ordinary people to do remarkable things.

Try something: instead of allowing distressing news stories to fill your mind, seek out examples of the good accomplished each day and let your heart rejoice.  Empowerment and peacefulness will be yours.

There is one more way.  Extending the awareness of presence still further we notice that what is in us is in everyone else too.  Wherever we go we are entertaining angels unawares.  It is our sacred duty to see beyond the interesting disguises that we clothe each other in.  I know an elderly person in the spiritual community where I minister who has been confined to a small room in a nursing home and has faced a number of life threatening illnesses and surgeries.  In the midst of these difficulties, far from being merely a recipient of other’s care, she uses her life experience to counsel aides and nurses, to express gratitude and to maintain a mature and insightful perspective.  She is an inspiration to me because she embodies the truth that the circumstances of our lives, however straitened and difficult, are not as important as the attitude and consciousness we bring.  She chooses to live from a unity consciousness.

So, the world is going to hell, the creek’s rising, and things are falling apart.  It has always seemed so.  We cannot fix the world or prevent its persistent pattern of creation and dissolution.  But we can celebrate it.  Change brings choice, and earth’s rhythms and flow are evidence of God’s creativity.  Get involved, stay curious and teachable, love, and in that open space of your heart Spirit will dance with joy.