From the Department of the Broken/Open/Hearted

Fourteen years ago today I was exercising on Bernal Hill with my best friend Leo. It was a brilliant day, with a crystal clear azure sky and an almost sultry breeze. As we walked down to the steps to go home, we were speaking of gratitude and presence and joy.

When we walked into the house, Alycia was poised in front of the television, holding Anya, 30 days old, tightly in her arms. I saw the fear in her eyes as she said “the World Trade Center is on fire.”

For most of my life, I had never wanted to have a child, and even through the months of pregnancy, though I never admitted it, I felt ambivalence. How could we bring a child into this world of suffering and hunger and conflict and despair? Was it even ethical? Were we being profoundly selfish?

That morning as we watched the second tower fall, and it became clear that this was an intentional act, all my doubts flooded back. I was overwhelmed with fear and sadness and guilt. For days, I wallowed in anguish, like the rest of the country.

And then it became clear that the whole world was grieving too. Out of the monstrosity of the act seemed to rise an opportunity for connection and healing across national borders; citizens of other countries for once seemed to have some sympathy for the United States, long-time imperial bully.

I started to feel some hope. Perhaps something good would come of this after all.

Of course, that is not what happened, and instead our nation turned to vengeance and war as a response. We decided that Safety was paramount: Build Bigger Walls! Build Bigger Guns! Invade! Destroy! Kill!!

Today, Anya is a teenager, just starting her first year of high school, playing soccer, rising early to do her homework, and the world seems even more fucked up and hopeless and desperate that it did that awful morning.

I ask myself the questions every day:

How do I live and work and continue on with my privileged life in the face of the profound suffering and despair that is engulfing humanity? How do I balance my desire to be open hearted, loving, vulnerable and authentic – to be truly present- with my need to set boundaries to keep myself safe and functional?  How do I stay strong and positive, rather than crumble under the weight of the world?

How do I enjoy this delicious cup of coffee, knowing that the people who picked the beans live in abject poverty? How do I savor this healthy and nutritious food, knowing that 800,000 people go to bed hungry every day? How do I look forward to a flight home to see my Dad, knowing that air travel represents the single greatest insult I can make to the global climate?

How do I celebrate the joy and grace of life, knowing that elsewhere humans, children, our brothers and sisters, are experiencing torment and oppression?

I struggle with these questions deeply; they bring a taste of bitterness to almost every meal, to nearly every breath.

Some spiritual teachers say that we must accept it all: that such suffering, whether in our own lives, or in the lives of others, actually represents Grace; that these experiences are all openings and opportunities to awaken to the deeper truth.

In a strange way, the warlords and “realists” say something similar, but with a radically different prescription: we must accept it all; this is the just the way it is. The world is nasty and brutish, and the best we can do is to build bigger walls and arm ourselves to protect our families and communities. We must be separate in order to be safe.

For my part, I don’t know what to do.

I find myself in a profound state of cognitive dissonance. It is all so confusing, so difficult. I don’t know what to do.

But I have been working hard to allow myself to stay in this place of Not Knowing, rather than flee as I have for so many years into the numbness and disconnection of distraction, whether in the form of pop culture, or fantasy, or intoxicants.

When I allow myself to feel, what arises naturally is a state of openness and love and gratitude.

The only choice for me is to choose the side of the broken/open/hearted: the oppressed, the desperate, the lonely, the forgotten, the unseen.

I choose the side of the young person who places a flower in the muzzle of the soldier’s gun which is pointed at his face.

I choose the side of the Chinese teenager who faced down a tank in Tiananmen Square.

I choose the side of the Palestinian mother who stands resolute in front of a bulldozer bearing down on her home.

I choose the side of Un-Safety, the side of the ephemeral, the temporary, the black rain falling on the temple roof.

I choose to live in this moment and to allow it all to come in, to serve as a witness to the horror and the devastation.

I choose to reject the scarring of my heart, to continually pull away the scabs, and to keep the wounds open and fresh, never fully healing.

I choose to celebrate the grace and the joy and the beauty of this life.

Despite all my questioning, I have never once regretted bringing Anya into this world, or her sweet sweet brother Enzo. They are the lights in my life, shining beacons of hope and optimism and acceptance.

I am grateful that they are able to live on this planet, despite all the troubles, and despite all the pain and suffering I know they will experience in the future.

I choose to be broken/open/hearted, and to speak my truth from this place of discomfort and dissonance. Cynicism and hopelessness and denial will never help a single person on this planet. Only by embracing the complexity of it all, the agony and the ecstasy, will we have the power to change the course of humanity. 

The world IS awakening. Human Doings are evolving into Human Beings with every breath. We can change this world.  We are changing this world.

And, of course, it is also entirely possible that it is too late: that things have gone too far, that there are too many guns, that the walls are too tall, that too many hearts have hardened into stone, that the earth is too damaged.

So be it.

Even if we are in the last throes of our species, let us keep our heads up, our hearts open, and our spirits focused on love and connection and family. Only by mourning the passing of our species will we find the power to change things for the better.

In days that to him must have seemed very much as terrifying as ours, Abraham Lincoln said:

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

Let us always strive to be still and present in the dissonance of this time, so that we may better hear the quiet but insistent voices of those broken/open/hearted angels.