Stay warm inside

I keep thinking about what a strange time we're living in. Not that I expected to go through life without experiencing any of the insanity that my grandparents did during the great depression and two World Wars. Or maybe I did...maybe I thought the security of my childhood would extend into forever. Grandpa had fought the demons with his heroic strength and fearlessness to sit back in his old age and provide security and tenderness to his grandchildren. As a side note, it seems that without him, my security in unconditional love is lamentably uncertain.

Earlier, I was washing some laundry in the kitchen sink and reflecting with a heavy heart on the most recent events in India. I wondered if a war is beginning to brew between Pakistan and India. I read on CNN today about Rwanda, and have a helpless understanding that the violence (poverty and AIDS) in Africa is far from being over. There's the report I heard about on NPR that within five years there's certain to be another terrorist attack in the West. And then our own individual, but nationally collective, spiral into economic crisis.

When I was a child I believed in something good and redeeming. That hope could come even in the darkness moments. But at thirty-one I realize that I don't believe in anything any more. After so many years of awakening to the willingness of human beings to inflict pain or death on others, I don't believe that there's a light at the end of anyone's tunnel.

So what keeps me going without a secure personal foundation of love, a sense of home to return to, uncertain beliefs for anything beyond this world, hope for peace and compassion to prevail over violence and apathy?

I think there's an answer. I think there's potential for compassion and love everywhere. Each of us just has to chose it. I think there's hope and disappointment, pain and delight in every human experience. I do believe in one thing that's eternal: the capacity of the human spirit to love, to give selflessly, to make decisions that will affect others in positive ways, and even throw some creativity out into the world. The answer's in that feeling we get when we go out of the way to help a patron find a picture of their great-grandfather, or bring some magazines by a friend's house when she's laid up with a broken leg. Or I don't know...like making enough soup to share with friends.

And for our own pockets of personal experience, I believe it's how we use the opportunity in each moment...or the more positive moments...to enjoy the simple things that emerge from daily existence and activity. As I rinsed my laundry in the sink, I took advantage of that time to reflect: many people are hurting in this world right now, tomorrow it could be me. But for now, I'm going to enjoy this music...this moment, the textures and smells and colors, and the quiet of the night.