Unrest

I’ve been feeling a lot of grief in recent weeks. I think I’ve had good reason to be in grief most of my life, but now is the time when I’m experiencing it most acutely.

Maybe it’s the election season, climate change, income inequality, or the fact I’m growing old in an ageist culture. I’m sure all of those things contribute to a sense of on-going melancholy, but I think that the grief I feel is the world groaning under the weight of so much confusion and hurt. I can’t sigh enough. The weight of global and personal unrest presses upon me, threatening to flatten out my existence even more than it already is. So, today, in this writing, like a broken prayer beseeching Mystery, I want to give my thoughts completely over to the restless heartache I feel within.

I can’t quite pin down what haunts me. There is a lot it could be. It could be the 40% of our nation that is suffering change so harshly that they are afraid and angry. Too many are willing to trade an illusionary wall, for the statue of Liberty. Idealized greatness is falling. It seems that the nation’s most central infrastructure, its citizenry, has been neglected for too long. And — I’m aware — the ice caps are melting, extinction goes on daily, and children are starving. As Leonard Cohen has said, “it hurts in the places where I used to play.”

This isn’t a litany of planetary suffering, nor a description of existential angst. It is simply a human cry. I don’t have the capacity necessary to hold the miraculousness of this existence, side-by-side with the sorrow I experience. The price of this ride is beyond my means. My eyes and heart are open, I am awed into reverence by all of this beautiful, and inexplicable foment. I am shaking. Shattered even, yet, there seems to be more. I don’t know what it is. But, I can feel its presence.

The landscape of the grief I feel leads me toward compassion. But, even there I am confused and overwhelmed. Compassion for who? Those who are under someone else’s boot, those who stick their necks out, those who don’t even notice, those who are aware of more than they can handle? My heart breaks for all of them, and because I’m human, sometimes, my heart breaks for none of them.  I am privileged enough to know the massive privilege of awareness. The foment doesn’t seem to notice — and cares in no way I understand.

And so it is, I exist in this seething miasma, lamenting a day that doesn’t go well, or sometimes, brought to my knees by an unexpected kindness. The moment holds more than I can take in. Still, I theorize I’m here to be a witness.  A kind of poster child for PTSD, I exist in a cauldron of dark goo, stuck to an unfolding, I cannot grasp. Being human, bearing the portion of awareness allotted to our species, is a gift I handle every day. Only today, right now, I think it is handling me.

My compassion extends to me. I’m getting old, and I’m seasick, from seeing too much. I find myself looking forward to death. In a cowardly, perhaps wise, stupor, I long for release. Like good bread dough though, perhaps I would best serve, if kneaded a little more. Existence seems to be buffeting me around, doing a good job of working me into a kind of malleable, unknowing haze. Fatigue was yesterday, today is just a hopeless openness.

I’m doomed to wonder. Questioning is so limited. What is coming is already here. I just have audacity enough to write these words, and to think they mean something. I’m not sure I could tell you what. But, I will marvel with you awhile, as the moon comes over the horizon. These tears, I find coursing down my cheeks, burn me with awareness, and remind me anew, this isn’t happening for my sake alone. I feel this unrest, this terrible blessing, because I’m made to bear it. The lamentable is so beautiful.

l/d

I’ve been feeling a lot of grief in recent weeks. I think I’ve had good reason to be in grief most of my life, but now is the time when I’m experiencing it most acutely.

Maybe it’s the election season, climate change, income inequality, or the fact I’m growing old in an ageist culture. I’m sure all of those things contribute to a sense of on-going melancholy, but I think that the grief I feel is the world groaning under the weight of so much confusion and hurt. I can’t sigh enough. The weight of global and personal unrest presses upon me, threatening to flatten out my existence even more than it already is. So, today, in this writing, like a broken prayer beseeching Mystery, I want to give my thoughts completely over to the restless heartache I feel within.

I can’t quite pin down what haunts me. There is a lot it could be. It could be the 40% of our nation that is suffering change so harshly that they are afraid and angry. Too many are willing to trade an illusionary wall, for the statue of Liberty. Idealized greatness is falling. It seems that the nation’s most central infrastructure, its citizenry, has been neglected for too long. And — I’m aware — the ice caps are melting, extinction goes on daily, and children are starving. As Leonard Cohen has said, “it hurts in the places where I used to play.”

This isn’t a litany of planetary suffering, nor a description of existential angst. It is simply a human cry. I don’t have the capacity necessary to hold the miraculousness of this existence, side-by-side with the sorrow I experience. The price of this ride is beyond my means. My eyes and heart are open, I am awed into reverence by all of this beautiful, and inexplicable foment. I am shaking. Shattered even, yet, there seems to be more. I don’t know what it is. But, I can feel its presence.

The landscape of the grief I feel leads me toward compassion. But, even there I am confused and overwhelmed. Compassion for who? Those who are under someone else’s boot, those who stick their necks out, those who don’t even notice, those who are aware of more than they can handle? My heart breaks for all of them, and because I’m human, sometimes, my heart breaks for none of them.  I am privileged enough to know the massive privilege of awareness. The foment doesn’t seem to notice — and cares in no way I understand.

And so it is, I exist in this seething miasma, lamenting a day that doesn’t go well, or sometimes, brought to my knees by an unexpected kindness. The moment holds more than I can take in. Still, I theorize I’m here to be a witness.  A kind of poster child for PTSD, I exist in a cauldron of dark goo, stuck to an unfolding, I cannot grasp. Being human, bearing the portion of awareness allotted to our species, is a gift I handle every day. Only today, right now, I think it is handling me.

My compassion extends to me. I’m getting old, and I’m seasick, from seeing too much. I find myself looking forward to death. In a cowardly, perhaps wise, stupor, I long for release. Like good bread dough though, perhaps I would best serve, if kneaded a little more. Existence seems to be buffeting me around, doing a good job of working me into a kind of malleable, unknowing haze. Fatigue was yesterday, today is just a hopeless openness.

I’m doomed to wonder. Questioning is so limited. What is coming is already here. I just have audacity enough to write these words, and to think they mean something. I’m not sure I could tell you what. But, I will marvel with you awhile, as the moon comes over the horizon. These tears, I find coursing down my cheeks, burn me with awareness, and remind me anew, this isn’t happening for my sake alone. I feel this unrest, this terrible blessing, because I’m made to bear it. The lamentable is so beautiful.