Jean
Vanier writes:
I
once visited a psychiatric hospital that was a kind of warehouse of human
misery. Hundreds of children with severe disabilities were lying, neglected, on
their cots. There was deadly silence. Not one of them was crying. When they
realize that nobody cares, that nobody will answer them, children no longer
cry. It takes too much energy. We cry only when there is hope someone will hear
us.
Such loneliness is born of the most complete and utter
depression from the bottom of the deepest pit the human soul can find itself. The
loneliness that engenders depression manifests itself as chaos. There is
confusion, and coming out of the confusion is a desire for self-destruction,
for death. So, loneliness can become agony, a scream pain. There is no light,
no consolation, no touch of peace, and of the joy life brings. Such loneliness
reveals the true meaning of chaos.
Life no longer flows in recognizable patterns. For the
person engulfed in this form of loneliness there is only emptiness, anguish,
and inner agitation; there is no yearnings, no desires to be fulfilled, no
desire to live. Such a person feels completely cut off from everyone and everything.
It is a life turned in upon itself. All order is gone and those in this chaos
are unable to relate or listen to others. Their lives seem to have no meaning.
They live in complete confusion, closed upon themselves.
Loneliness becomes such uncontrolled anguish that one can
slip easily into the chaos of madness … (Vanier
– Becoming Human – pg 9)
In the face of suffering, what are we
to do?
What are we to do? What can I do?
Ultimately
it is about carrying our faith into the world and living what we believe IN THE
VERY FACE of that age old struggle.
That struggle is the heart of the Book
of Job.
The book of Job is not so much the
story of one person but rather the cry of confused outrage from the heart of a
people in exile. Job represents that faithful remnant of the people of Israel
who had tried to serve God faithfully and yet found themselves defeated and
overrun by their enemies. It is an attempt to understand how a truly great
person could become so forlorn and destitute.
Job’s friends assure him that the
calamities which have befallen him must be the consequence of some terrible
personal sin or fault. Job knows this is not true and when he refuses to accept
the guilt they try to lay upon him, they accuse him of the sin of pride. In today’s passage, for the first time in the
book, we hear God speak. After listening endlessly to Job and his “friends”
argue, God’s voice speaks out of a whirlwind. Here we encounter a God that
cares for and serves the needs of all creatures – not only humans.
Job’s problem is placed into the
context of the whole created cosmos. The questions that caused him to feel
unjustly treated fade in the light of this cosmic vision. We begin to perceive
that the answer to Job’s demand for understanding requires a major shift in his
perspective. Part of Job’s problem, it seems, may lie in his human-centered
world view which causes him to ask all the wrong questions and to seek
wholeness where it cannot be found.
He is drawn out of his
self-centeredness into an awareness of the wholeness and relatedness of all
God’s creation and somehow, the longing of his soul is satisfied. Healing and
relief come to him – not from any rational understanding of his suffering – but
from a profound sense of awe before the mystery of God. We are led to wonder
how many of our own complaints about life might disappear if our own lives were
more filled with awe and wonder.
What if … what if has become a
favourite question of mine lately – what if we lived lives more filled with awe
and wonder?
What if – we were able to have moments
like Job, where we are totally overwhelmed by awe and wonder and find ourselves
standing in a place of incredible holiness – overwhelmed and completely
immersed in the very presence of God especially in the face of sorrow and
suffering such as named by Vanier in the opening text?
In the Hindu tradition, the holy text
of the Bagava Gita bears striking similarities to the book of Job. The king
Arjuna is leading his troops into a great battle when suddenly in the midst of
the raging maelstrom, Arjuna realizes his chariot driver is the god Krishna …
like Job suddenly Arjuna finds himself in the presence of the Holy and is
facing a barrage that says essentially – how dare you question me … were you
there when I created the world? Were you there when I did all of these things …
who are YOU to question me …
Yet in the dialogue there is a
powerful conversation about the very nature of creation and the role that
suffering, struggle and the things we frame as negative play in the overall
play of the universe. It about finding our balance in the cosmos and within
ourselves and being able to see the big picture …
The big picture at play today in our
society is one that clearly shows the importance and vitality of balance.
On one hand, we have a culture that is
awash in greed, insecurity, selfishness, fear and anger – commentators describe
this as alienation – alienation from self, from others, from the culture
itself. Our solution is to build bigger walls, install bigger locks, and seek
security and safety by hiding ourselves away and becoming more and more insular
and isolated.
But on the other hand are values of
creativity, vitality, compassion, care, and love. Commentators – often with a
deep sense of human spirituality, speak of the freedom that comes from those
values – freedom that seeks the good of others, while opening ourselves up to
the possibilities and potentials that are all around us – freedom that allows
us to rise above the petty problems and be more …
In recent weeks, we’ve seen this
imbalance play itself out in the election here in Canada and in the build up to
the election in the US.
The fear-mongering and the focus on
the economy and non-issues like immigrant, refugees, the niqab and old stock
Canadians are about fear are not reflective of freedom, but are reflective of
alienation … we fear the Muslim … we fear our neighbour … we are to be more
concerned about our personal taxes rather than the simple FACT that secure good
paying jobs are draining away at a frightening rate … our political leaders
want to focus on ourselves rather than on the common good …
Worry about your pocket book NOT your
neighbour is the theme we are told to embrace, or sometimes, as in the case of
one candidate we may be familiar with – it is openly a case of bigotry by
calling on the immigrants bringing a rich and deep tradition with them, to go
home where they came from – forgetting that ALL of us came from somewhere else
and brought their culture with them … I’m the first generation of my family – a
family who have been here since the summer of 1847, who does not speak German …
I guess we, despite a history of service and sacrifice to our country are not
Old Stock Canadians …
That’s the insidiousness of fear and
alienation … that is what we are to be fighting against as people of faith … we
are to be about freedom … addressing the sorrow and alienation people
experience DIFFERENTLY.
Vanier writes:
A sense of loneliness can be
covered up by the things we do as we seek recognition and success. This is
surely what I did as a young adult. It is what we all do. We all have this
drive to do things that will be seen by others as valuable, things that make us
feel good about ourselves and give us a sense of being alive. We only become
aware of loneliness at times when we cannot perform or when imagination seems
fail us. Loneliness can appear as a faint dis-ease, an inner dissatisfaction, a
restlessness of the heart. (Becoming Human - PAGE 7)
This dis-ease of alienation and
loneliness is rampant. It is all around us, and some of us may even suffer from
it ourselves …
This past week I finally admitted to
myself that I have been struggling with that issue of alienation and loneliness
in my journey … I’ve said for years “I’m fine …” but this week I realized I was
far from fine … I was in truth NOT fine!
My life has been out of balance and
disconnected. I felt anger and resentment far more than I felt joy and
lightness.
I stopped being hopeful about things,
but had grown angry and frustrated – I was not fine … and I have not been fine
for several years despite my best effort to fake it …
That hunger within lead me to the core
writers of Thich Nhat Hanh, Jean Vanier, Eckert Tolle and others who helped me
reopen a door within that I had long ago forgotten and overlooked … it was
ultimately a door of awareness and mindfulness.
A door that is about the awe and
wonder we began with.
Earlier this week I stumbled across a
reading in the writings of Eckert Tolle that gave me an “Oh sh-t …” moment –
Tolle writes:
... people with strong pain-bodies often reach a point where
they feel their life is becoming unbearable, where
they can't take any more pain, any more drama. One person expressed this by
saying plainly and simply that she was "fed up with being unhappy."
... they know that neither their unhappy story nor the emotion they feel is who
they are ..."
As I read that I gasped in recognition
that it described me …
For Tolle, the pain body is the
remnants of negative emotions we’ve experienced
- it is a gathering of energy and emotion that we carry as part of our
experiences. It is the gathering of all of our past experiences and it colours
and affects our present – Tolle describes the pain body as something that sits
dormant like a black cloud within us waiting to unleash its stormy contents …
Each of us carry it whether we
acknowledge it or not, and when we are out of balance the suffering, loneliness
anger and resentment all rush to the surface and overwhelm us and drag us into
a dark place where everything is seen in a negative light …
BUT WHAT IF ?
What
if we countered the pain body and the negative and the dark cloud cloud with
child-like awe and wonder?
What if we were to be more child-like
in our lives and embrace awe and wonder while letting go of our alienation?
How many complaints in life might
simply disappear if we stopped feeding our fears and our angers and our
negatives, and instead fully lives with the awe and wonder of a child?
Years
ago, I read that the holiest moment in ALL of creation is the wow of a child
discovering something new for the very first time – what if we lived our lives
in that holy wow – encountering God and the holy in EVERY MOMENT?
Tolle observes that we are constantly
trying to find our way home, but we never feel like we are home when we are
awash in the feelings of alientation – what if the remedy to alienation was and
is as simple as finding the home that lies within us – and has been there all along
…
Our Psalm reading this morning beholds
the marvels of creation and praises God for all that God has done – What if –
pausing to consider creation is one of the ways home?
What if living aware and mindful of
what is around us, and our place within it is a means of finding our way home?
This past week I put and app on my
phone that rings a Buddhist mindfulness/meditation bell at random intervals –
the intent is to pause and breath mindfully using the exercise from Thich Naht
Hanh I shared last week. When the bell rings I pause and breath and say:
Breathing in, I calm my body
Breathing out, I smile
Dwelling
in the present moment,
I know this is a wonderful moment!
In the midst of a busy hectic day the
bell chimes and I pause – close my eyes breath and become very conscious and
aware of the moment … aware of my breathing and the stress ebbs …
It can be that simple … pausing to be
mindful and aware of the moment. Aware of our breath – aware of our inner
turmoil or peace … and as we become aware of what’s inside we are better able
to face what’s outside … and with peace and mindfulness we become aware of the
holy that surrounds us … and life fills with awe and wonder …
Imagine a world awash not in fear and
alienation, but awash in love and awareness … it starts within by embracing the
holiness that is around us … and it can start with one breath …
May it be so …
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