Recently, I posted this on my Facebook. I’d appreciate your thoughts as well.
Dear friends,
Something’s been troubling me lately, and I’d love your thoughts.
I sense that many of us are carrying something heavier than usual these days — war, injustice, political division, a hurting creation, and people treating one another badly. It feels as if we are being torn apart, and I have tried to name this heaviness within. It isn’t necessarily depression. It may be closer to grief.
Right now, I recognize that sorrow, anger, or discouragement about a broken world isn’t necessarily unhealthy. It means I haven’t gone numb. I care. Maybe you resonate with this, too.
Here is where I get stuck. I’m trying to keep my eyes open to real sorrow, and it’s not easy. I don’t want to become indifferent to suffering but to deepen my compassion. At the same time, I’m reminded of the limits of what I can control as I try to clarify what truly matters. I try to move toward prayer, be more generous, serve others, and be a reconciling voice. But I wonder whether all that is just my superficial way of saying I care, while putting a band-aid on a major wound. It’s even harder to be grateful when I know others are suffering.
I know there’s a boundary worth watching here. My sorrow turns destructive when it bends back on me as hopelessness—that nothing matters and nothing can change. I know my grief is real. I feel it, but I realize it cannot consume me. What then?
Many of you know I am a Christian, though right now it’s hard for me to say I am because the term has become so loaded. Perhaps a better way to express it is that I try to follow Jesus; I have sacred writings that help and guide me on my journey. One category of those writings that has helped me work through my feelings about our world can be summed up in one word, one theme: lament. I read many of the psalms that give me permission to say,
“God, it is horrific what is happening to others here on earth! Aren’t we all related? How long will this go on?”
I confess that I sometimes use more colorful language that isn’t appropriate to say here. But it’s my way of entrusting my grief to God, a force and power at work beyond what I can do. It helps me stay in a troubling world while narrowing my attention to people near me, the work I have, and the small acts of kindness I can offer.
But I am just one mind, one person. I would like to know how you navigate the state of our world without slipping into despair. This is a time for us not to retreat into hopelessness. It’s a time for us to stay faithful to what we believe without letting the world’s weight crush us.
I would appreciate your thoughts.
Hoping life is treating you well,
John