Climbing Mountains

After a week like this, how can one not be left feeling heavy? Heavy with the weight of sorrow and fear, heavy with the knowledge that we can try to solve it by duking it out in the political arena, but evil never hides and people can always find it and use it. Maybe we are never fully safe from each other, a thought that makes me weep. Because we need people. We need each other so desperately.

There are a million reasons to lose our faith in humanity. Look around. Boston might be the biggest indicator right now but every crime committed, every judgmental comment slung about, every voice raised in anger at another, can turn into a cacophony, reverberating through us all, trying to drown out everything else.

But.

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. ~Helen Keller

I found this quote tonight on Kelle Hampton's blog and it sunk into my soul, dripping into the sadness and the hurt and filling the holes. Because the truth of that one statement can be stronger than the cacophonous evil. Evil doesn't win. But that truth lies in our perspective, in the way we see the world. We could focus only on the first part, on the real-and-never-changing truth that the suffering will always be a part of our reality. And we could leave it there, losing hope. Losing faith. Never taking a step to rectify it. That's one way to see the world.

But it's not the only way. The perspective can shift, the angle can tilt. We can choose what we see, what we zoom in on, how we respond. Perspective and action. A better world might actually hinge on those two powerful things. This week, I attended an Earth Day conference with Dr. Jane Goodall as keynote speaker. Her message that night (the afternoon of the bombing in Boston, though I was not aware of it at the time) was that even though there are so many problems in our world- people hungry, forests decimated, species endangered- the story isn't over. The die has not been cast. She outlined the reasons why she still has hope, why she has not given up. Three things: human intellect, the resiliency of Nature, and the indomitable human spirit. The indomitable human spirit. Indomitable. As in: cannot be dominated. Too strong to be destroyed.

As humans, we are capable of building mountains of hate and judgment and anger... and sometimes those mountains can seem to blot out the view. But we are also capable of love and forgiveness and empathy. We have the power to seek the beautiful amid the brutal, climbing those mountains, dominating them with our indomitable spirits. Let compassion guide our eyes and our hands and our spirits, and there is nothing we cannot do.

Prayers to Boston tonight. Let's go climb some mountains.

Be Still

Currently Reading: Marmee and Louisa by Eve LaPlante and The Yellow House by Patricia Falvey

Nathan and I went to our church on Saturday afternoon, slipping into the quiet, darkened sanctuary for a half hour of stillness and reflection and prayer, alone with our Lord in His house. It felt so right, so necessary, to center ourselves and lift our thoughts and questions to God after a day of tragic news and horrific truths. I left the church feeling whole and restored, still shaken but sure of who He is and the good that still exists in this world.

My journal received some of my thoughts this weekend, but I want to share some of them here as well. There is so much sadness in the world, so much I want to change- not just the tragedy in Connecticut but those who struggle and hurt every day- in poverty-stricken countries in Central America or war-torn areas in the Middle East, even the homeless and hungry in our own country- people we don't often hear or talk about and are never mentioned in our Facebook statuses. We are so blessed, so lucky to be protected and well. And when our sense of security is shattered, as it was on Friday, we grapple with our feelings of vulnerability and of fear. Of our mortality. Of the potential of losing what is most dear to us. We are stripped raw and exposed as we force ourselves to re-examine what is most important in our lives, and let go of the things that don't matter. While it hurts and tears at us, it is so good to venture from our stable pillars and reassert our faith in God, in each other, and in ourselves.

Weeks from now, the events of this weekend- the pain, the fragility, the awakening- will only be an aching memory and we will return to our daily routines and worries. But this week, with Friday's events still raw in our hearts and with Christmas celebrations drawing closer, my challenge for myself- and for you- is to watch and take note of the little blessings we are given every day, savoring the joy that comes when we stop to notice them. One of my favorite Bible verses is "Be still, and know that I am God." When I am still, when I stop and slow down to fully recognize the blessings of my life, I find God. He is there- in the glow of our Christmas tree, in the dance of sunlight on snow, in the voices of my loved ones. I will seek Him, living in gratitude, despite the world of sin in which I live. And by doing so, even when I feel most helpless, I know that gratitude can lead to amazing things, that it is powerful. With thankful hearts, we can bring love and understanding and kindness to our world and the world of those around us. We can change our perspective... and make a difference in our own, unique ways.