I don’t know where this post is going. I’m just going to get started and see what happens. Let’s explore some paths to peace that may lead to a better place.
As is likely true for most of you, I’ve been feeling assaulted lately by the continuous bombardment of bad news. I read the New York Times and find very little uplifting news. Quite the opposite. I hear about:
Corporate exploitation
Pharmaceutical misrepresentation
FBI/CIA machination
Religious manipulation
Technological dehumanization
Sociological alienation
Political fragmentation
Environmental degradation
Economic devastation
Military ruination
Media fabrication
Pandemic devastation
AI abdication
I’m left with a feeling of powerlessness and helplessness. What can one person do that might derail this run-away train heading for a cliff? I don’t know. Were the train derailments in Greece and Palestine, Ohio, simply metaphors for the inevitable end that awaits us?
It’s tempting to give up. Or retreat. Or stay in our bubbles. Or spiral down into negativity and despair. Sheepishly, unlike most of the world, I have so much to be thankful for:
Food in the frig
A house over my head,
Reserves for my retirement
A wonderful wife
Devoted Daughters
Growing grand-kids
A healthy heart
An imaginative mind
Community connections
Fun-loving friends
Candid conversations
Woke work
No, I should have nothing to complain about, and I have no idea what it must be like to suffer through:
Earthquakes
Mass shootings
Pandemics
Poverty
Bombings
Bullying
Racism
Sexism
Disease
Disability
Depression
Divorce
And yet, I still feel overwhelmed. The world seems like such a scary, mean, and brutal place. I feel inadequate in my meager attempts to make a difference, I feel guilty for not doing more, and I feel complicit in my own contributions to the problem.
I read Padraig OTuama’s Poetry Unbound, to sooth my soul. His reflections on his favorite 50 poems take me to a completely different place and space. His writing helps me transition to the solace of sleep.
I listen to Ezra Klein’s podcasts to inspire my mind. His interviews with leading thinkers stimulate me to look deeply and carefully at my own life and the lives of my fellow species on this planet. His most recent interview with Jane Hirshfield was particularly meaningful and moving.
Jane is an American poet recognized as a modern master. She graduated from Princeton in 1973 in the school’s first graduating class to include women as freshmen. She then spent 8 years at the San Francisco Zen Center. She says, “poetry is the attempt to understand fully what is real, what is present, what is imaginable, and how I can loosen the grip of what I already know to find some new changed relationship.” She is the author of award-winning books on poetry: Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry and Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World. Hirshfield has an incredible ability to imbue the ordinary with a sense of majesty and wonder. You can see why I was so taken with this podcast and with her.
In these dark days, OTuama and Hirshfield have luminated my nights and lightened my days. For me, these poets have provided real paths to peace.
Are there other paths to peace that may help us navigate the hopelessness and despair that many of us feel – that may brighten our days? First, I have found it helpful to think of hope as the possibility of experiencing moments of joy and cosmic connections. It’s unrealistic, and probably inappropriate, to think my life should be a constant high – full of jubilation and joy. George MacDonald had it right when he said, “in each moment choose to do what you know is right. Be vigilant to realize when you have chosen a path that is not right.” So while happiness is not the right goal in life, I can still be open to enriching and enlightening moments – loosen the grip of our current reality on my soul.
I recently spent a couple of days with the staff and Board of Norte, a youth cycling organization in Traverse City, Michigan. I was facilitating a strategic planning process in which they were grappling with their vision, values, mission, and goals. Given the state of the world these days, they were questioning their vision statement of “Happy, Healthy and Strong” as the desired end state for their work. They wondered if “happy” was an appropriate aspiration or a fool’s errand in today’s context. We had a meaningful conversation about the importance of their work given the fact that adolescent depression, anxiety, sadness and loneliness have all soared from 20% to 60% in the last 10 years. We decided that their vision perfectly expressed their deep purpose if they interpreted it as a response to one of the most troubling problems in society. Whatever they could do to provide moments of happiness and joy for kids could not be more important. Happy. Healthy. Strong. Seems like a right and worthy path and purpose to me. I encourage you to donate.
I believe the same is true for us as individuals. While it’s self-defeating, not to mention narcissistic, to set an expectation of continuous happiness, it seems reasonable to hope for moments of happiness, joy and peace. I find those moments in meditation, in music, and in family meet-ups. And, what I have come to believe is, making a meaningful difference in the world can only start with ourselves. How much light and joy do we bring to each moment? How impactful is our personal energy on the people we care about? Do we bring people up or bring people down? Do we radiate a healthy glow or disrupt a joyful flow?
What we don’t know is how much of a difference our own energy makes in the Universe. We do know from the physics of “spooky entanglement at a distance” that we are all intimately connected, interrelated and interdependent. What’s going on with our energy has an impact far greater than what we might expect. For example, the butterfly puzzle (how does a butterfly flapping its wings in Argentina impact a weather event in Arizona?) raises that question. The idea behind the butterfly effect is that small, seemingly trivial events may ultimately result in something with much larger consequences. Our cosmic connections may be more potent than we dare realize.
I believe we develop radiant energy and cosmic connections by:
Reading
Listening
Meditating
Exercising
Writing
Connecting
Playing
Noticing
Opening
Understanding
Shifting
Harmonizing
Soothing
Flowing
Growing
Knowing
Sensing
Freeing
Emptying
Serendipitously, or not, I just finished Ian McEwan’s new book, Lessons. McEwan provides a fictional account of a person’s journey dealing with all the dark nightmares of the 20th and 21st Century. Even though reading the book was a bit of a roller coaster ride for me, going from penetrating insights at the peaks to boring drudgery at the bottoms, it still captured poignantly how one person navigated all the horrors listed in this post, and how he found moments of joy in spite of them. In this novel, the main character, Roland, experienced sexual abuse as a child, a series of broken relationships, the loss of parents, wives, and friends as well as the endless devastation of confronting the horrific events dotting our historical landscape over the course of human history. I can’t say I strongly recommend it, but it clearly brings this post alive in intimate, if not exhaustive, detail.
An even better summary of my message here can be found in the last stanza of a poem for peace by W. H. Auden: September 1, 1939, which captures the spirit intended in this post far better than what McEwan was able to accomplish in his long book, or that I have managed to express in this short essay.
Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
Auden implores us to “show an affirming flame” in a world “beleaguered by negation and despair.” Those two phrases sort of say it all. I could have saved myself a lot of time if I had found that poem before I started writing this post. But that’s what opening up to new relationships can do.
Finally, if you are looking for a salve for your soul or a non-pharmaceutical intervention for your anxiety and depression, pick up Katherine May’s new book entitled Enchantment – Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age. May defines enchantment as “small wonder magnified by meaning.” Her writing is poetic, her prose is profound, and her messages are magical.
At the beginning of this post, I didn’t know where it would go. As it turned out, many ideas came into clearer relief for me as I plodded, pondered and penned. I hope you have enjoyed the journey and made new discoveries along the way.
As the post and the poems reveal, there are many paths to peace. I hope you will discover your own paths by exploring all the possibilities that you may have closed for whatever reason. As Jane Hirshfield suggests, we need to loosen the grip of what we already know to find some new changed relationship. Indeed, loosening up may lead to the opening up of new paths. May these paths to peace infuse love, wisdom, power, and joy into every cell in your being and manifest in helpful ways. May you find a path to peace out of the darkness that blinds us and the wars that haunt us. May you kindle an affirming flame that lights a path to moments of hope, happiness and magic. And, by all means, in spite of it all, may we do the right thing in each moment.
Also published on Medium.
You just keep getting better and better! Thank you Ricky!