A Time For Silence, A Time To See, A Time To Speak
What is happening in the world these days can feel overwhelming. The badgering news of terrorism, wars, and President Trump’s latest actions – just to name a few – are triggering all kinds of emotional reactions among different people.
Some are following the news addictively on an hourly basis. A habit that can quickly take over one’s sense of sanity and mental health.
Some are channeling all their energy into activism and have become watchdogs for the issues they care about. “We have to be proactive about every single thing before our rights get eroded. Even if our actions are preempted it may be a deterrent,” one activist friend told me. Her passion was inspiring but also felt overwhelming in its charge. Activists can also find it difficult to find a sense of calm in the midst of chaos and sometimes feel overwhelmed and fatigued not only from their work but from the intensity of their own emotions.
Some are rejecting the news all together and retreating to their spiritual practices like meditation and yoga. “Aleppo and all the killing and death are not real. It is not part of our lives. The reality is in the spiritual realm. The reality is in the Divine,” one “healer” told a woman who was crying about the massacres happening in Aleppo. Spirituality is indeed a place of center but that center also needs to be placed in the reality of this world and not in an alternative universe.
Some are going about their daily lives without bothering at all to check in on what is happening in the world. They are either not interested or feel they cannot do or change anything anyway. “I don’t feel responsible for the actions of the American government,” one businessman told me. Even though they may think they are passive about the world, history has showed us that there is no such thing as passivity. The way I see it is every citizen is part of every country and if you happen to be one with freedom, money and power, you more than anybody else are responsible to use it for good actions. Ultimately each voice matters - powerful or not. Those who remain silent in situations of injustice legitimize it.
I believe now - like no other time - is the time to show up fully in the world. We are living in a changing time - wherever you may live and whatever your politics may be. People all over the world are becoming more and more connected to each other on issues related to wars, terrorism, the environment, women’s rights, human rights, money, and politics. No one is immune from anything anymore. Our interconnectedness is more obvious than ever before.
Truthfully speaking, finding my own center in what feels like a storm taking over the world has been a challenge. I have been the overwhelmed excited activist, I have been the silent spiritual retreater who isolated myself in the wilderness, and I have had days of trying to avoid what is happening in the world. What I have come to realize is that the extremes of all of these behaviors are not the solution – at least not for me.
What I have learned is…
SILENCE is important. Some feel silence in meditation, some in the refuge of spiritual work, some in working out, some in nature. In my opinion, it is essential that we create a room for ourselves to be silent every day. Silence centers us; it anchors our spirits in the Divine. Missing out on it, is like depriving our spirits from water and air. But don’t stay in silence. Though spirituality, silence and meditation leave one with a sense of extreme beauty and comfort, staying there is ignoring our realities as human beings in this world.
SEEING what is happening in the world is just as important as the time you create for silence. Be present and, understand what is going on politically, economically, and environmentally. That we see and witness what is happening in today’s world is critical for developing connections and feeling compassion for each other. When I saw an American woman from Montana who had never been to Syria or the Middle East cry at what was happening in Aleppo, I said to myself “I wish Syrians could see her tears. It would show them that people do care about them.” Many around the world who are going through horrific crises be it in Syria, Iraq, or Southern Sudan feel that the world does not care about them. That feeling creates disconnection rather than connection. It creates anger rather than love. One tear shed can do the magic of healing. So SEE what is happening in the world and don’t shy away from acknowledging it.
Then SPEAK! However you choose to - speak! But speak, share and act to make this world a better place. Each one of us has the responsibility to show up fully in this world. We owe it to ourselves. We owe it to the Earth, to the Divine, to our values, however you want to see it. SPEAK! For your retreat in silence is a lie you are telling yourself. Those who are suffering see your silence as a hypocrisy of your self-proclaimed values. SPEAK what is right. SPEAK your conscience. SPEAK your values. Show up however you want. Just do not hide behind silence. You legitimize oppression when you do that.
The integration of SILENCE, SEEING, and SPEAKING may lead us to different kinds of actions. When the presence of silence anchors our seeing and calms our souls, we speak not from anger but from consciousness and awareness; such speaking has different energy to it. It is one that stems from the strength of our spine rather than the charge of our chests. This time, like no other, we all need to show up.
May we all show up fully and awaken in this time.
Triumph Of Hope
In the midst of what feels like a time of fear, prejudice, anger, and blame, one can easily lose the self into pain and despair. We are living in a divided world – a division that no longer feels along the lines of “us” and “them”, this party and that party, or this nation and that nation. The division of today is taking place in the intimacy of our families and friends. Fathers who voted for this person and daughters who voted for that person; mothers who hold this value and sons who hold that value. When division, frustration and anger enters into the intimate corners of our lives, it is all that much more confusing and painful. And yet, in the darkest moments, it is important to search for hope around you.
When you are overwhelmed with news of violence and hate, when your heart is broken for whatever reason and for all the reasons, look for moments of hope. Look for that act of kindness from a stranger. They are all around you. In the subway of New York I witnessed, a young Polish Christian woman holding the hands of a young Somali Muslim woman wearing a headscarf. The Somali woman was lost and did not speak English. The Polish woman took her hands and in her broken English went out of her way and took a different train route just to help the young Somali woman arrive at her destination. When some political and religious leaders tell us about the division between Christians and Muslims, when they bring out and build up fear, I think of these two women in a New York subway and I think to myself They Are the Triumph of Hope.
When you think the doors are closed, when you feel darkness has arrived, when anger is surrounding you, knock down the brick walls around you and open a window into hope. I see hope in the painting of a Palestinian artist from Gaza who created the most beautiful painting in the midst of a heavy Israeli bombing. Out there, in the colors of his canvas, he writes “In this life is what is worth living for.” I see the words of life in the midst of bombardments of death and I say to myself He Is the Triumph of Hope.
When all is gone, when love leaves you, when what you have built is stolen, pick up a machete and pave a path of hope into the wilderness of your world. Don’t wait for others to create it. You be the one who paves the path of hope. Be Suha, a young Iraqi woman who created a small radio program that boasts out the latest music favorites of her family and friends still stuck inside Mosul under ISIS control. She managed to escape Mosul and in the midst of her exile she paved a path of hope as the world watched mesmerized by ISIS - forgetting the people who bring hope to those around them. I listen to her music and I think to myself She Is the Triumph of Hope.
When your energy is low, when the tears pour out like rain, when your body is aching, go out and walk in the wilderness. And you will see the broken winged bird flying. And the dog with no tail running. You will see beautiful broken branches. You will see pale grass growing. Within nature lies the source of all hope. When all the light in your home burns out, go, go out and bask under the warmth of the everlasting light – under the sun that keeps on giving. I look at that light and I think to myself That Is The Triumph Of Hope.
When you think we are living in a war, look at the map written in the face of an Indian elder and witness the wisdom that kept him going. He Is The Triumph of Hope in staying still and holding on to that ground of indigenous wisdom until the story of that injustice comes out.
When you think all is gone, do not just shut your eyes closed. Open them and stare into the windows of this world and you will begin to see hope all around you. Hope is in the goodness of people, in the hearts of animals, in the beauty of Earth, in the stories of our ancestors, in the courage of our youngsters, in the fierceness of our oceans and in the kindness of our moon. Look around and you will see That Triumph of Hope. Write it, share it, speak it, dance it, be it, that’s how light shall be seen in the midst of darkness.