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.)
It is indeed a very hard time to be alive. And, yes, the box of darkness is very heavy. It might be the heaviest it has been (for me) since 9/11 or the bleakest days of Covid. But I look outside, and the sun is shining today. The sky is blue. When I look at the sky, I see hope.
ReplyDelete"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."
ReplyDeleteYes. But "the box of darkness is too heavy" and so we cannot speak to it alone, we have to include the beautiful, the cooperative, the pain, as you do in this perfect poem.
The heavy box is too heavy for me to lift some days and some days I wonder if there are more of 'them' than us. It's overwhelming. The areas in Minneapolis where the murders were committed I know so well! Twenty-three years we lived there, my forever friends in their 70s and 80s are standing in solidarity, on street corners, bundled up against sub-zero temps, holding placards and homemade signs, peacefully protesting. I am in awe of them.
ReplyDeleteHelen, they are incredibly brave - heroic - in Minneapolis. I am feeling a shift.......a line has been crossed. I pray for change.
DeleteI feel your heavy heart. I think the whole world is watching North America with the sort of magnetic gaze of someone watching a train race towards a washed-away bridge.
ReplyDeleteAnd the only ones who dont see that are those in deranged power and their supporters.
DeleteI can vividly feel the hurting in your heart and the pull between the beauty of nature and the hurts of humanity - powerful - Jae
ReplyDeleteOh give me a hug It is hard. It speaks of strength though that you can hold both truths Take care
ReplyDeleteSherry, you've told our mess in a wonderful writing, a piece of prose to tell the world.
ReplyDeleteToo, thank you for hosting for our outlook on various public moods on a given take-off.
Poking the West Coast, for us it's a lovely place to visit. My grandparents lived there in upper Oregon.
The weight of your two truths is clearly visible. We live in hope for if you give up on hope there is nothing left. I feel the line of change has been drawn and hopefully, for the better. Focus on the beauty before you. Peace and light to you!
ReplyDelete"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."
ReplyDeleteIt is difficult to carry two truths. Why do I get the feeling that not enough people
feel this way. The box is weighing me down.