What This Storm Is All About
Being wrestled by big, sticky, hard questions
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
Let’s just call a spade a spade: this is a sh*t-storm.
The head-spinning turmoil of the last weeks’ news coming from here and across the globe has left me almost speechless. I find it nearly impossible to put into words the varied feelings, thoughts and concerns that flood my mind and heart hourly. Comfortable as I am with change and doing my best to release judgment, this is a lot all at one time, intentionally overwhelming. Frankly, I am not doing the best job of holding it all together.
But I’ve decided that instead of rushing to name the rapid-fire and often contradictory impressions that inundate me, I am allowing them to muddle around, arising and falling as they do, letting myself be wrestled by the questions, and observing that I can’t come to any conclusions because whatever conclusion I MIGHT come to is likely to be overturned in the next “breaking news” cycle. I just have to let it all happen. As Rilke instructs, I’m trying to “be patient toward all that is unsolved in my heart,” and “to love the questions themselves.”
It’s not easy, and like many of us, I find myself looking for comfort and answers. But I don’t have either, and I refuse to pretend that I do just to put out some eloquent spiritual “message” to calm, incite or explain. I simply can’t. I’d rather be absolutely honest right now and share what I am experiencing: I’m confused, shocked, worried, heartbroken, exhausted and lost when it comes to making sense of what’s happening and what I feel, think, believe or trust about it.
I suspect I am not alone in this. Many of us are struggling to stay afloat, alternating between utter disbelief, anger, fear and deep grief. I think many of us are in “Flight/Fight/Freeze” mode. Paralysis and numbness are just as common responses to sudden trauma as combative or reactive action is. Even people who think this is all awesome are having a hard time keeping up. I know I find myself bouncing back and forth between staring blankly at the craziness on my screen, sleeping a lot, reading ancient texts for guidance, daydreaming about places to move, screaming into my pillow, and reaching out to friends and colleagues for comfort, while simultaneously listening for ways I can help those who are most affected. Maybe you are experiencing a similar roller-coaster.
I remind myself that for right now, none of that is bad or wrong. We have to give ourselves permission to be where we are, even if we are a hot mess. What is happening in our country and abroad is an unprecedented assault to our senses of normalcy, morality, security and sanity. “Unprecedented,” an over-used term, is, unfortunately, the best way to describe what we are collectively experiencing. Many of us alive today in America have never lived through anything like this, though if you grew up in Europe, Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East, parts of Africa, South America, Central America, China, or other parts of the world that have seen their social and political systems upended overnight, this is eerily familiar, if not equally as frightening. For our friends abroad, this staggering subversion of a world order we have taken for granted is just as incomprehensible. We are all caught up in this maelstrom.
Times like these ask hard questions of us: big, sticky moral and ethical - and yes, spiritual - questions. What is right? What is wrong? How do I know? How am I to respond? These are the same questions we have been asking ourselves for thousands of years.
A few of those questions have been rumbling around in my head and heart of late as I try to sort my way through it. These are the questions that are wrestling me right now (as opposed to the other way around). They aren’t gentle musings, but urgent, active and insistent, and like the Angel who wrestled with Jacob, they have the capacity to batter and bruise us, but ultimately to bless us. I offer them here not as “teachings” or solutions, but as invitations to be wrestled with, opportunities to pry open deeper meanings or new ways of framing what we are experiencing that might help us weather and grow through the storm.
What is Love? How do we love when times are hard? All our traditions, but especially the Abrahamic ones, make “love” the central imperative of our spiritual life. V’ahavta, in Hebrew: And you will love. The Torah and the Bible instruct us: “And you will love your fellow/neighbor/enemy as yourself.” What exactly does that mean? Love is a verb that includes actions. What actions constitute love? And what do you do when it’s really, really hard to love someone who is causing pain and suffering for so many? What does “love” do then? And why does that phrase, “And you will love” start with “And?” What precedes that?
What is “right” and what is “wrong?” When it comes to morality, how do we formulate our judgments? Is there absolute Right or Wrong? Is there truly “good” and “evil?” Without sliding into moral relativism, what barometer can we use? And what happens if we determine something is unquestionably right/good or wrong/evil?
Where do punishment and retribution fit in? What happens when we profess to be tolerant and generous, but also feel the desire to punish or seek vengeance? How do we hold that contradiction? Are there situations in which punishment or retribution are valid? On what grounds? And how are those to be enacted? Is it our job, or, as many traditions teach, the Divine’s? Conversely, what of Forgiveness? Compassion? Mercy?
Where do intention and action differ? What are our intentions and how do they align with our actions? In a court of law (and in the Talmud), intention is considered when judging someone’s actions. How can we consider the relationship between our intentions and actions, and those of others? Is one more important than the other? What if they are in conflict?
How do we hold the “both/and?” In times of polarization and extremism when nuance takes a back seat, can we be OK with two (or more) things being true at the same time? And what happens when we find ourselves swinging back and forth between our own views?
These are a just a handful of the questions that have been wrestling me into the wee hours (yeah, it’s not fun to be me sometimes). I don’t have answers to any of them. It’s an ongoing inquiry, and to be honest, sometimes, I just throw up my hands in despair, tap out, and turn on Netflix (I’d be happy to share my recent “I just can’t think about this stuff anymore” distracting movie/series/YouTube list, if you’re interested.).
But I will likely be digging more deeply, exploring these questions and others as themes in the coming months because they are the big questions at the heart of our current crises and we need to consider them as we move forward. If we don’t, we will be doomed to repeat our mistakes, or perhaps not survive them. I doubt I will ever have definitive answers, but I do know one thing: this is going to be a long, complex, life-altering ride.
Change is inevitable and it’s already happening. We are already being changed, whether we like it or not. I have already found myself shifting around beliefs I thought I had clear. By the time it is all over (is it ever really “over?”), much of what we have known and held to be true will be dramatically different, both in the world and in ourselves. Nothing will be the same once this storm subsides; the process itself will change us all in one way or another. Some of it might be better and some of it might be worse, but we aren’t in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. As my catch-phrase of late has been, “Buckle Up, Buttercup.”
I invite you to come on this perilous journey with me, and, if you are called, to share yours with me and each other. We can’t get through this alone. We need each other, if for nothing else than to help us clarify our own messy thoughts and feelings, beliefs and intentions. What are your questions? What conflicts are raging inside of you? What can you allow to arise and fall without needing to answer? Can you love the questions, patiently?
Let’s allow ourselves to be wrestled by the questions themselves, and maybe to be blessed by them. Just as Jacob was changed and blessed - stronger, more resolute, and wiser - after his encounter with the Angel, we can be, too.
In that vein, I offer the words of one of my favorite authors, Haruki Murakami: “And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through...you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.”
You do well to point out that nobody in America – or Canada or Australia, or the UK if they're under 80 – has lived through anything like this. Nearly everyone I know is affected by it in one way or another. Neither September 11 nor the first Trump administration had anything like the kind of effects that this one has had in just its first few weeks. In living memory the only things to have had even close to this kind of effect on everyday life were the Vietnam War and the COVID pandemic. And the question racing through my mind is: how do we deal with it? In the first administration we thought we might be personally affected in abstract ways (being brown, being LGBTQ) but that usually turned out to be more fear than reality. Now jobs are already being lost, futures being smashed. It requires a different kind of cope, and I'm not yet sure what that is.
Thank you Lauryn 🥰🙏