I Wake Up and It Breaks My Heart*

 

I open my eyes on a beautiful West Coast morning: sunshine, forest breathing greenly, eagles soaring above, the eternal waves rolling in to shore. The world could not be more beautiful. Yet its human and non-human beings are suffering. Holding both these truths at once breaks my heart.

So much suffering: humans, whales, polar bears, Mother Earth herself, all of her creatures struggling to adapt to the climate crisis, wars, discord and injustice that (in)humanity has caused.

I have lived through suffering often in my 79 years. But what is on my tv screen these days I never thought I'd see in North America. Yet here we are.

I was raised to live in hope, "hand on my heart, hand on my stupid heart*", believing that faith and goodness and laws and rights and freedoms - that justice itself - would hold strong.

This box of darkness is too heavy. Yet I have to believe that, collectively, far more of us believe in justice and equality and human rights than not. We can put this box down, rise up to reclaim all we hold most dear, talk loudly to our representatives, VOTE!!!, help, protect and bear witness to our neighbours in harm's way. March for the dispossessed, both human and animal. Help where we can.

I carry two truths in my tired and aching heart: the world could not be more beautiful. That it also is suffering lives in my every heartbeat.

In the morning, I open my eyes on this beautiful West Coast world. And it both lifts and breaks my heart all over again.

* title and italicized lines from "Meditations In an Emergency" by Cameron Awkward-Rich

For my prompt atWhat's Going On: Help for Hurting Hearts. (Not sure how much help it offers, sadly. Other than sharing the journey.)