Broken Open

 

The shooting in Texas set this off. It once again, led to an experience that has been haunting me for some time. Living, in the midst of global collapse, is especially challenging.  It’s dangerous in a new way. The war in Ukraine, Covid, mass shootings, financial inequality, global warming, all of these things dominate my pedestrian concerns, and color my days with a darkening hue. The times we are living in, are hard to digest. I live in a kind of post-traumatic numbness. Fortunately, the pull of grief, and the desire for healing action, tear me open. I am exactly as broken as the times.

 

I’ve been wondering how to keep my sensitivities afloat during this flood of human dysfunction. Pain, hopelessness, and fear threaten to overwhelm my natural elder positivity. The possible death of the species, of complex life on the planet, and of life itself, overwhelms and confuses me. My own death looks better to me as I am bombarded with images of famine, floods, and drought. Will this nightmare never cease!?

 

I am struggling. I have a life — and I feel a sense of obligation to it. I fear there are many who are jeopardized right now, and many more who won’t be so lucky in the predictable future. What do I do? How do I live with knowing what I know? I am a witness to history falling down. Can I keep my eyes open, my heart engaged, and my soul ready? This is a moment infused with deep uncertainty.

 

I am a human caught in a mesh none of my ancestors ever knew. Instead of the great predator animals, and the mysteries of life, threatening, as it did them, this generation of humans is having to face the fact, that we are the ones who threaten us. Human danger emanates from human life! What I fear is a product of my kind. 

How do I respond to that awareness?

 

I don’t really have an answer to the depth of this conundrum. I wriggle uneasily with it. My sleep is fitful, interrupted by dread and shame. My trust in others, especially when they are silent about all of this, is provisional, uncertain, and limited. I am some weird combination of raw and numb.  The quality of my living is turning on the same axis point as the larger life around me. I am sometimes dubious about myself. Anguish sobers my days.

 

All of this, weighs on me. As I am touched by what is happening in Texas, Mariapul, Somalia, and parts of Ethiopia, I am spinning, caught in a vortex, that is changing my humanity, breaking my heart open, and making everything unrecognizable. Living with my heart broken — opened by a torrent of love, grief, and wonder, is all that is left.

 

I hope it is holy, to love what is dying. I hope that one can be present with a leaking heart. Sustaining a smile, being occasionally warm, touching what matters, holding another, all of this, is not only still do-able, but more powerful and essential in this darkening world.

 

The heart breaks open when what ails us appears. I want to be capable. I think the crumbling going on around me is leading me towards greater compassion. Broken for broken.  Broken for a shattering wholeness. So quivers the opening……