Making Sense of it all....

When so much violence, anger, fear and tragedy are surrounding us it is pretty hard to remain centered.  How do we make sense of the senseless?  How do we come to terms with so much death and destruction on our doorstep and for some of us it has crossed a threshold and come into our homes.

We have all been touched – we are all being touched.  The world really is on the brink of so much and so many decisions that us as the 99.9% who have no influence or can barely make even a ripple of impact on the direction our world is heading, are more and more feeling helpless and hapless, as we are bombarded with the nastiness of human nature & the power games of those in charge.

I hear about war zones and can have tentative opinions about Gazza, about Iran, about Syria; in reality those warzones seem far away from my comfortable little life in southern Australia.  Even hearing of the atrocities of our current government treating people seeking refuge worse than animals are treated, I feel like I can only scratch the surface of actually making a difference and encouraging reason to prevail.

When a plane with so many innocent souls are blown out of the sky, it somehow makes it all the more personal.  This could have been any of us.  The fact was, it was any of us.  I am part of a wider community in mourning for a couple who were a living and breathing part of this community only last week.  I had worked with one of them facilitating writers workshops as part of my previous job.  I had met his wife.  I did not know them, but they were part of the fabric of my community.   Any loss in my community is my loss.  The grief is as personal as it is communal. 

For me, the post effect of this carnage is that I have a more heightened awareness of a world in strife, of a world enmeshed in anger, blame, hatred and violence.  I’m now reading the stories of Christians in Iran and I know them as my story; I read about the cruelty of war zones in all of the many hot spots and I feel them as though they were happening in my back yard. 

We know they are happening in our own back yards.  The world is our yard. 

I was reminded of the words of Martin Luther King “only in the darkness can we see the stars” as used by Christine Milne – Head of the Australian Greens last week.  She used this in the context of the repealing of the Carbon Tax by the Australian Government.  For me it has a broad and very pertinent relevance for the state of the planet. 

This helps me make sense of it all.  For those of us working in the ‘light’ – whatever form that takes for us personally – the growth of the darkness means that our light will shine brighter.  We may not have power and ‘influence’ on our side, but we certainly have the numbers.  Our job as the 99.9% is to keep the light shining and shining a light when and where we can to counteract the darkness.  For me that means making sure I choose love. Making sure I start with love for myself.  Staying true to myself and remaining vigilant of when I am drawn into the anger, hatred and darkness and choose despair over consciousness and effect.  For me it means going still more often. Making sure I read the good and uplifting stories as much as I read the death and destruction stories.  Making sure I love those close around me ferociously, and extending that ferociousness out into my community who are grieving, and into the world that is brokenhearted.

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“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear”    Martin Luther King

Here is a link to a Calming the Heart meditation which also might help....