Our Struggle and Possibility

Our Struggle and Possibility August 29, 2016

The world changes in direct proportion to the number of people willing to be honest about their lives.

—Armistead Maupin

 

Like everyone, I am deeply disturbed by the epidemic of violence in our nation. It is a heartbreaking sign of our age. I live in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where during the last year, we experienced a mass shooting, the violence spilling in our own streets, a mile from where I live. In Charleston, where I teach every year, I walk by Emmanuel Church every visit, and had met Reverend Pinckney. In aftermath we, like everyone else in the world, must choose between caring for each other and striking out at each other.

Each time, I think we might tremble enough to make no weapon automatic. I think we might be shaken enough to no longer ignore those with mental illness. I think we might look up and recognize each other, in our pain, as more fragile and connected than anyone imagined. But most of us have become inured to the senseless killing, as if it were uncontrollable, like tornadoes or lightning strikes. And since these tragedies, there have been so many more stricken and killed.

When broken by tragedy, we’re very close to being ethical and loving. Yet when overrun by fear, we often think self-interest will protect us from the hardships of life, when all it does is consume us until we add to the hardships wearing on others, unwilling to own the harm we inflict. Ultimately, the moral conscience of a society is measured by how well it threads its justice with its compassion.

So how are we to understand these violent outbursts? It’s easy to label the broken and lonely who are shooting up movie theatres and elementary schools as crazy psychopaths. Indeed, they are. It’s easy to throw our hands up in disgust and say they have nothing to do with us. But while these broken, aberrant souls are responsible and accountable for the harm they perpetrate, it’s not that simple. Just as an aneurysm occurs in the body because a weakened artery wall can’t withstand the force of a pressurized and stressed system, these weakened souls are social aneurysms, waiting to explode in response to the pressures of a society that can’t calm itself.

While these individuals are responsible for their actions, we are responsible for creating a stressed and pressurized society that is relentless on the weakened members among us. Why are so many weak cells exploding? Why is the societal blood pressure so dangerously high? A mature society commits to relieving the stress points in its community, while holding those who snap responsible for the harm they do. What can we do to calm and stabilize our larger community? Where are we relentlessly stressed? Are we mature enough to tend to the broken parts as well as the pressurized whole?

If we look at humanity as one global body, then, as in every human body, there are healthy cells and toxic cells. Health in the world abounds when there are more healthy individuals than toxic ones. And every time we meet in kindness and truth, every time we tend to each other, we strengthen the immune system of the global body.

Everything is connected and therefore, everything matters. And every time we strengthen a heart, we lessen fear and violence somewhere in the world. This is the challenge of our time: to strengthen our hearts and to lessen our fear and violence. We are all in this together, no matter where we live.

Charles Dickens began his novel A Tale of Two Cities with the sentence, “It was the best of times and the worst of times.” What is profound about this is that every era, every generation, every day, is the best of times and the worst of times. It is up to us to choose, as those before us, between love and fear.

manbaby
photo by Josh Willink at Pexels

Last month, Atria published my new book, The One Life We’re Given: Finding the Wisdom that Waits in Your Heart. To make the most of being here, we’re required to learn when to try and when to let go. This is our initiation into grace. The gift and practice of being human centers on the effort to restore what matters and, when in trouble, to make good use of our heart. No one quite knows how to do this, but learn it we must. There is no other way. By fully living the one life we’re given, we’re led to the wisdom that waits in our heart.


Browse Our Archives