By Wendy Morical
My lovely and talented mother, who spent the last year of her short life both fighting cancer and completing her Doctor of Ministry degree, described herself as a contemplative. Her doctoral dissertation focused on incorporating the teachings of contemplative guides like Julian of Norwich with practicalities of modern life. She read, prayed, and wrote extensively about the effort to merge a daily, direct connection to the Divine with her quotidian responsibilities. She was a scholar and a mystic.
She was also silly, sarcastic, and self-deprecating. Pinned to the bulletin board in her workspace was a Peanuts cartoon dating from the 80s. In it, Sally announces in the first frame, “I hate everything! I hate the whole world!” Her brother Charlie Brown, who’s watching TV, responds with, “I thought you had inner peace.” Sally’s retort: “I do” and then, in the final frame, “But I still have outer obnoxiousness!”
I still have this cartoon. It makes me smile with fond and vivid memories of my amazing mom, but it also touches a strong chord in my own personal consciousness. This resonance comes from my very real sense of being overwhelmed by negativity some days. I feel battered by events around me. There are days when I am precariously close to Sally’s world view, hating the world and everything in it.
We all need to accept the fact that the pandemic and its aftereffects are still with us – and so, too, are repercussions of other social upheavals of recent years. In her current book Enchantment, Katherine May describes the spirit of fear and anxiety she finds pervasive in 2023:
“The last decade has filled so many of us with a growing sense of unreality. We seem trapped in a grind of constant change without ever getting the chance to integrate it. Those rolling news cycles, the chatter on social media, the way that our families have split along partisan lines: it feels as though we’ve undergone a halving, then a quartering, and now we are some kind of social rubble.” (p.5)
This is a troubling reality, yet it’s gratifying to hear others speak about their own struggles and to know this is a shared experience. Several people have talked to me recently about being unsettled, feeling resistant to circumstances, or carrying low-grade distress. I can’t put my finger on what it is that has shifted in me, but this blog post is not long enough to list all the trivial setbacks that frustrate and anger me – daily! (Bozeman traffic, anyone?) Nevertheless, I do not want to develop habits of responding negatively to the world.
I imagine everyone can recognize a portion of what I have tried to express, even if your experiences are different. Many dear people have faced loss far greater than my petty setbacks, and recent hateful legislation has impacted lives much more significantly than the minor inconveniences that I may find myself focusing on. Regardless of our varied perspectives, I hope that rejecting a life of outer obnoxiousness is a shared goal. We are all in this together.
As we, together, strive to find our own versions of inner peace, it might be worthwhile to begin by acknowledging that life is flowing on, although its course and rate of flow may have shifted permanently. There isn’t going to be a return to “normal”, as we eagerly anticipated during Covid shutdowns. We may need to work a little harder to navigate this new era – and to support each other in our efforts.
I’d like to share a few questions I’ve been focusing on in recent days. Hating everything, hating the whole world, has become too exhausting. I need to chart a new course.
Who are mentors I can rely on to guide me?
Where can I find joy and continuity in my life?
How will I more intentionally focus on those things?
How can I make a positive impact on others today?
What role does my faith play in challenging times?
As each day begins, I can ask a loving God to grant me patience and compassion for others and for myself. As Pastor Laura reminded us last week, “in the midst of all these changes and challenges” always remember that this is God’s realm, filled with God’s power and glory forever.
Thank God for the life we have been given – and the challenges that help us grow.