Hump Day open thread: In midwinter

Well, friends. It's been a rough few days for me. The enormity of what we're going through finally did me in. 

Two years of pandemic. 

A political landscape in which a vocal minority wants to burn down the world.

Personal traumas.

These are all unavoidable. This is the world in which we live. It is a world spinning around, uncertain as to where it will land, uncertain as to its fate.

I absolutely understand those who want to give up. Who, as I joke about myself, want to retire to a Trappist monastery for a life of quiet reflection. It seems futile, and our actions have no power to move the needle one way or the other.

But that's not what I was put here to do. If it were, I wouldn't be in public service. If it were, I wouldn't have this blog. If it were, my life path would have been far different.

And if you're reading this, it's not what you were put here to do.

We bear witness to the unbearable. We uplift the downtrodden. We seek to rectify the world.

In Jewish mythology, there is the idea of the Shekinah. It is God's glory, which in the mythical past was shattered and scattered across the world. And it is the role of humanity to reconstitute this original, unitary Godhead, and thus make the world whole.

I think of this myth often. I think of this myth with every action I take. Every time we help one another, we rebuild this unitary holiness. Every time we act with kindness, we become closer to the divine which pervades existence. 

What is gutting is that so many people don't see this as their task. They don't see the Golden Rule as the rule to govern human relations. That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the law. The rest is commentary. Now, go learn.

You must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on. This one line by that blessed Irish poet is our situation in a nutshell. We feel we can't go on. We feel we don't have the strength. We want to lay down our cares and worries. But that's not the fate of a human being. I can't go on. I'll go on. There's nothing for it but to get stuck into the work. There's nothing for it but to keep moving ahead. Any other option leads to death. And our survival instincts won't allow that.

We have this strength in us. We have this core desire in us to live, and to live well, and to see others live well. Those who can't see that their lives are inextricably linked with everyone else's life are the ones against whom we struggle. They are the sociopaths, the ones who think they owe nothing to anyone else. Maybe they've been betrayed their entire lives. Maybe they never experienced love. They could choose differently, but their lives have gone so off the path that they're lost in brambles, and won't be found. Our struggle is to make sure they don't destroy everything in their anger. 

Yesterday was the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. Festivals of light abound, as the days grow longer, and warmth begins to return to the dead earth. The earth goes on.

We must go on, even when we feel we can't. We have no other choice.