Called to Care

Living the truth in grief and gratitude

What is calling you and me? I hear from many friends that they are sad, even grieving, and are having trouble staying hopeful about life on Earth. What to do? How can we care for our own body-mind as we are confronted by the unrelenting onslaught of chaos, misinformation, violence, suffering, and death?

First, we can stop. Stop what we are doing. Stop thinking. Stop worrying.

Then, we can come home to the present moment in its fullness and perfection. Mindful breathing while sitting, standing, walking, eating, or resting can help us do that. We can be aware of breathing in, and breathing out. In the here, and in the now. In love, and in gratitude. In, Out. Here, Now. Love, Gratitude. Repeat. We can experience being alive in this moment as part of the living Earth of air, water, soil, plants, and animals, including humans and our creations.

Then, we can acknowledge that it is the nature of living beings to be impermanent, interconnected, and full of suffering. Everything appears, changes, disappears, and continues to transform. There is no permanent self. Everything exists in interbeing. There is no separate self. All beings experience mental, physical, and relational anxieties and challenges.

Once we have stopped, become present, and filled with deep understanding, then we can experience the call to relieve suffering in others, ourselves, our societies, and ecosystems as a part of the living Earth. Through our words and deeds, we can offer care, comfort, peace, and happiness.

So, in the midst of climate fires and floods, horrific warfare, crippling poverty, harmful prejudice, systemic patriarchy, and domination by the wealthy and powerful, we can stop, become mindful, understand deeply, and engage in compassionate actions that relieve suffering and create beloved community.

I recently heard from a longtime friend saying that all was well in his life, then acknowledging his worries about the presence of so-called “Christian” nationalists in the US, the terrible violence in Gaza and Israel, and the increasing devastation of climate change around the world, but nevertheless expressing his optimism in the future. Then in a subsequent message, he wrote that he is actually finding it difficult to be optimistic and that he was scared.

Yes, how can we be honest with ourselves and others? And, what can we do individually or collectively at this moment of history and evolution that can possibly make any difference?

Again, we must first take care of our own body-mind. Then, we can care for our family, friends, and neighbors, both near and far. We might help plant a vegetable garden, install solar panels, and/or get a backup generator. We might talk with and listen to neighbors with whom we disagree. We can help those who are suffering in so many ways - through donations, providing food and housing for the homeless, supporting public demonstrations and writing Op Eds calling for policy changes, speaking out at public meetings, calling representatives to demand a ceasefire and humanitarian aid, voting and getting out the vote (GOTV), running for office, supporting the rights of women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ, avoiding both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, calling for reform of the Supreme Court, and establishing a hefty wealth tax, and universal basic income (UBI), and so much more.

How are you thinking? What are you doing? Who are you being?

What are some of the deep underlying challenges we face within and without? Ignorance, fear, pride, greed, anger, and hatred arise again and again in each of us. We can be ready, watchful, and can comfort and care for these negative emotions. We can watch them change, dissolve, and become something different. We can channel the energy of these experiences into positive feelings, words, and actions, into moral outrage, and into ceaseless efforts of caring and kindness, patience and forgiveness.

Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani activist promoting girls’ education, said it this way: “I do not even hate the Talib who shot me. Even if there is a gun in my hand and he stands in front of me, I would not shoot him. This is the compassion that I have learnt from Muhammad the Prophet of Mercy, Jesus Christ, and Lord Buddha…. And this is the forgiveness that I have learnt from my mother and father.” In 2014, at the age of 17, she received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Now is the time. And we are the people. The people of the hope beyond hope.