PART 1 of  2

Everything terrifying is, in its deepest being,
something helpless that wants our help.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke

What makes loneliness an anguish
Is not that I have no one to share my burden,
But this:
I have only my own burden to bear.
~ Dag Hammarskjold

surreal [ suh-ree-uhl, –reel ]x
having the disorienting, hallucinatory quality of a bad dream; unreal; fantastic

In the array of misused or overused words, the word surreal must certainly be toward the front of the line. My use and the meaning of the word array—unbeknown to me until I just looked it up—has a sad but fitting connection to that which I am responding in this two-part reflection. As it happens, among its other definitions, array refers to “military force, especially a body of troops.”

I have noticed these past four weeks of brutality and madness in Ukraine perpetrated by a heartless, violent man throwing a little boy’s tantrum, how many people in Ukraine when interviewed by Western reporters use the word surreal to describe what is happening on the streets of their country. It’s that go-to word when things are not as they once were, when things are not as they are supposed to be, when what we wake up from in the morning and go to bed to at night feels like a bad dream, a bad trip because—however few there are in the world percentage-wise—there are still far too many grown men with uncultivated souls holding the reins of power who use that power to do great harm.

The questions that understandably arise in surreal times like these are “What are we to do? How are we to respond? How can I—just one person living thousands of miles away—be of any help?” That last word speaks to the tension does it not, that we want to help but feel so helpless? It has become fashionable when something goes awry, when personal and more than personal pain trumps pleasure, when suffering outranks joy, to denigrate the response often offered by people feeling helpless: “Thoughts and Prayers.” The cynic or the passive aggressive or the mocker of prayer or of the One to whom those prayers are said to be addressed or the gripped-with-unbearable pain, hear it, at best, as merely a pro forma sign off, perhaps a well-intended sentiment of care but one that makes absolutely not one wit of difference, at worst, as an insensitive insult. Such receivers of what they deem to be just weak attempts at consolation respond with a slightly veiled accusation that if you don’t have something with a bit more firepower, a bit more practical substance to say, then PLEASE, don’t say anything at all.

“It’s a difficult business, being human,” writes poet, agrarian, social commentator, and decent human being Wendell Berry, especially with so much unnecessary, unbearable, horrific, human-caused suffering and—much of the time —with so little that can be done to alleviate it. And yet, we can offer something, something genuine no matter how seemingly small or insignificant when it comes to changing what is either real or surreal. So, yes, let’s keep offering thoughts of concern if for no other reason than to cosmically counter some other humanoid’s cold indifference.

And let’s keep offering prayers whether you believe in prayer or the One toward whom they are aimed or not because minimally our petitions and intercessions reveal the human side of prayer, reveal us, who we are, show what concerns us, moves us, what breaks our hearts. Such basic feelings and responses remind us of our own humaneness, of our primary vocation to actualize what Rabbi Heschel refers to as “the quiet eminence of our being,” as well as reveal our sense that this is not how life is meant to be.

In addition, re-membering ourselves to others and holding them before God in prayer serves as an antidote to self-absorption. Instead of focusing solely on our own needs, carrying the prayer of others helps us avoid the ultimate existential loneliness which comes knocking at our door when we only see and bear our own pain and suffering. Carrying the burden and prayers of others is both a way of reminding us of the intimate, interdependent nature of all reality and a way of consciously connecting ourselves to others—be they human or more-than-human—in the Holy Communion that is the liturgy of life.

Keep giving money to reputable humanitarian organizations. Keep gathering, if safe and possible, with others to be a visible sign of protest, disapproving of those humans who betray their own humanity by acting so inhumanely toward others—human and other than human creatures. And let us treat one another, those who are up close and personal—family, friend, and stranger—with the reverence, kindness, deep sympathy, mercy, and care that we would want extended to us. If we can’t make someone’s day better because they are far, far away, then let’s consciously and intentionally offer not-so-random acts of kindness to someone within arm’s length, someone closer to home, someone who would consider it a blessing if we sent an email or a letter or called them on the phone.

Let’s also support and encourage one another to refuse to cave to cynicism, indifference, callousness, and hate. And let’s remember when the tight-lidded jar of someone else’s suffering is passed around from person to person to undo, it is everyone’s effort that enables the one last person’s ability finally to unscrew and get the lid off. Each and every person’s small gesture of kindness, little imaginative word of solidarity and support, and simple act of compassion to Anyone Anywhere Anytime moves the personal, communal, earthly, and cosmic needle toward goodness and justice and peace and beauty and the dream of God coming to fruition “on earth as it is in heaven.”

. . . to be continued . . .

4 ways to help Ukraine (that you may not have heard about) CLICK HERE.

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