How do we embrace life as well as suffering and death?
This week, I began writing a blog about suffering, and I stopped myself. It felt too vulnerable… too difficult to talk about.
It seems that there is always suffering in the world – whether it is war, disasters, shootings, pandemics, ICE raids, etc.
No one really wants to talk about death and suffering. Yet it is all around us; we often don’t notice unless it comes close to home (or we are fed the images on TV or social media).
In nature, death is fully apparent but we don’t pay much attention. A large fallen Douglas Fir tree across a stream; a dried up earthworm on the cement, caught in the open after a rainstorm; a hawk catches a field mouse and brings it back to the nest for two hungry babies. The dead leaves on the forest floor are crushed beneath our feet as we walk.
Natural Death vs. Human-Caused Harm
Yet there is a difference between these natural deaths and these unnatural events of human device. A part of us can understand and somewhat accept the death of an old tree or one animal in order to feed another. But crimes of hate? War? Brutality and abuse? Rape? Sometimes it seems like all too much, and we ask why? Why that person? Why now? Why that violent act?
People often ask me what I think – why do these things happen? And my honest answer is that I don’t know. We can try to come up with explanations and investigations to discover motives, rectifications to attempt to prevent such future horrors. We can explain it by some spiritual platitudes or psychological analysis. But it still doesn’t change the fact that these things happened, and continue to happen around the world.
All I can offer, and all I can do (short of a march, a letter to a congressperson, words of protest, volunteering for an organization, writing an op-ed), is feel and accept what has happened and how it has impacted me. To share compassion with those in pain. To help them hold their own hearts tenderly as they grieve and allow the waves of pain to wash through until they have finished pounding the beach of the heart.
Holding Compassion for Ourselves and Others
Besides the actions we feel we need to take in the world to prevent future harm, the work we do within ourselves to heal from these traumas is of utmost importance. To work through what they may trigger within us from our past. To share our compassion and empathy with the victims. To help these “victims” find their empowerment again.
And to share compassion, too, with the perpetrators. I’m not unique in expressing this: until we can have love and compassion for everyone, then we cannot truly stop the pain in this world. The pain comes from lack of love, lack of compassion, lack of connection. My sense, as other spiritual leaders have expressed, is that those who inflict pain are suffering inside, especially from a deep rift of disconnection with others.
Returning to Connection – with Self, Others, and Spirit
This is the plague of our modern society: disconnection. It is not a simple solution. It will take more time than probably our lifetimes to change. But we must heal the deep disconnection in our culture by making conscious effort to connect to others… friends, neighbors, strangers, people similar and people very different from us. And conscious effort to connect to ourselves.
Everything that I do is, ultimately, focused on healing this rampant sense of disconnection and returning us to deeply connect with each other in community, to connect to the Earth (that’s a whole other topic!), to connect to our very own selves, and to connect to Spirit.
If that touches you in some profound or gentle way, I am here for you. Whether online or in person, let me know where you feel disconnected and how you want to heal. For we are truly all connected by something beyond what we can see or touch… we are connected by the Divine itself, by the Source of Life that gave rise to you and me and all life here.
May the Divine enfold you with deep love and compassion… and may you receive it deeply into your heart.
