World on Fire

holding it all

An unexpected comment last week caught me off guard.

My feet were soaking in a warm pedicure bowl on an average Tuesday. The chair’s back massager kneaded my tight lower back. The familiar face of my favorite nail tech looked up at me and said, “Are your worried about World War III?”

This young man is maybe 20, Vietnamese, passable English, probably an immigrant.

I took a deep breath.

“Well, yes, I kind of am. The world feels like it’s on fire,” I replied.

War can seem far away as we sip lattes and get pedicures, safe for now. Unless you have a family member deployed for our country, war feels less than real—almost another world.

My nephew, Lt. Col. Jeremy Evan Tillman, fought and was injured in Iraq, and received a Purple Heart, among other awards for bravery. It is gut wrenching to have a family member at war. It is real blood on the ground. It is surgeries and ongoing pain and sometimes death.

The current state of the world takes me to a pit of helplessness off and on, as those in power recklessly choose anything but peace, both in the U.S. and abroad. Motives are insanely unclear, which stokes the feelings of helplessness.

I envision bombs and drones flying toward people, and I cry for them. I cry for the human race.

I know this is depressing, but there’s more.

Underneath this macro layer of the world and its accompanying undercurrent of anxiety, there are the real worries of friends and family in turmoil, of sickness and grief and other unnamed varieties of suffering that are completely out of my control.

A dear friend’s granddaughter with health struggles and mutiple hospitalizations, an unemployed family member looking for work, and worrying about his next meal, his rent. And on and on…

I feel them in my heart and soul, these friends and family.

We are all holding a lot. Every day. Every one of us. We are connected to everything, so external realities have real life implications.

One way to cope is zooming in.

Think of an aperture tight enough to see only the world within my range of vision.

The fresh green shoots of my hydrangeas, a promise of beauty to come.

Bird song in the mornings with my Merlin app, the sight of a cedar waxwing.

A quiet, rainy morning, tea made mindfully, a book.

A game of Mahjong with friends, the feel of the tiles, the light banter, and the bliss of concentration.

A new rug to perk up a room

A dog’s smile! Yes, my dog actually gives a toothy smile.

You get the picture. We notice pockets of joy. We can hold grief and joy simultaneously. Also worry and joy; fear and joy.

In the words of one of my favorite young philosophers, Cory Muscara:

Spiritual growth isn’t about making life easier.

It’s about increasing your capacity to hold nuance, complexity, uncertainty and discomfort without losing yourself.

Just so happens, life becomes a little easier when your mood and identity are not riding the roller coaster of cable news, social media, other people’s opinions, and events that are out of your control.

Take a little break today, even if it is 10 minutes of deep breathing and prayers of gratitude for small things. Or 5 minutes of looking at the sky and listening for birds.

Zoom in.

Now, zoom out.

Envision an aperture so wide, so grand, it encompasses the entire bigger picture. I like to think of this as God’s view of the mess and madness and miracles. Stars and heaven.

From this vantage point, we seek to trust in God’s timing; that the resolution of conflict will happen at some point, one way or another. That there is a plan greater than our ability to conceive. The word here is faith.

We’ve survived great calamities as a human race. Civil war on our soil tested us, but didn’t break us. Hideous world wars eventually ended, and healing began. Corrupt leaders fell from power.

So today I’ll zoom in and count my small, not-so-inconsequential blessings. Some days that is enough. And some days, a great faith is the only answer.