How Then, Shall We Live?

The morning of the State of the Union address, Michelle Cottle of the New York Times suggested that Joe Biden needed to go commando.  Those aren’t the words she used (doesn’t “going commando” mean forgetting one’s underwear?) Here’s what she actually said: It is time to unleash Dark Brandon on this soul-sucking downer of a presidential race.  Cottle’s rationale: Many voters see Joe Biden as too old and feeble, and his team’s “rise above it” response to criticism isn’t playing well. Biden did get feisty in last week’s speech, to good effect.  He mixed it up with the “Trump-drunk MAGA hecklers” (another delightful Cottle turn of phrase). He showed wit and humor, tweaking his opponents without ever turning nasty.  Spicy Joe won. 

Cottle is right is right about another thing. This presidential race is soul sucking.  And it’s not the only thing that ails us right now.  Racial injustice, social divides, threats to the planet, disagreements that blow way past way ideology into demonizing of the other side. It feels like we have lost the ability to define the common good, let alone come together to achieve it.

I feel myself getting afraid of these next eight months—and beyond, if the unthinkable happens in November. Every day I hear: We have never been so divided.  It is a hard time to be alive. 

But is it the hardest?  I think my Dad might debate that. I wish he were here so I could ask him.  He nearly starved in the Great Depression, only to be rewarded with a world war that required he and his contemporaries fight, and die, by the millions.  Or, let’s ask slaves in the 19th Century American South.  Or, immigrants swimming across the Rio Grande.  Or, women in Afghanistan. Or, children in Gaza, Ukraine or Somalia.  Or any parent, anywhere in the world, who will try, and fail, to find enough food for their children today. 

When people like me claim that life has never been harder, it feels like one percenters clutching their pearls.  I know it’s an anxious time.  I know the problems are real. But can we not perseverate in fear and anger?  Can we not pull a Fox News?

A few years ago, in a secondhand bookstore in Santa Fe, I found a book called How Then Shall We Live? Four Simple Questions that Reveal the Beauty and Meaning of Our Lives.  I love this book.  It was written by Wayne Mueller, a Harvard educated minister, hospice worker, and founder of Bread for the Journey, an organization serving poor families in northern New Mexico. It is beautifully written.  I quote it frequently in my teaching and counseling; I close my Writing Through Grief course with this Mueller quote: “Not only are we strong enough to bear the pain we are given, but our sorrow can actually become a bridge to a deeper and richer life.   We are larger than even this hurt.”

Am I really?  Larger than my hurts?  How then, shall I live through the scary, soul-sucking eight months just ahead?

Here are three ways I want to try. 

 With perspective, for starters.  I will try to remember that as bad as things might seem right now, we of this time and place do not really have a lock on the world’s worst anything.  Saying so is inaccurate--and, truthfully, a little self-centered.

I will act, rather than give in to despair. Light a candle rather than curse the darkness. My candle is political volunteerism—the writing and organizing I do to reach wide swaths of undecided voters in this country.  Alone, my efforts don’t mean much.  But added to the actions of others, I think we might just turn the tide.  So it’s objectively important. But I really do it for a selfish reason: it makes me feel better. Acting is my antidote to anxiety.

Finally, I will try to live with the Buddhist concept of Metta,“universal loving-kindness.” This dynamic approach to the universe and everything in it calls us to love all people—those we know; those we don’t; those with like; those we don’t. Or, if we can’t manage love, at least compassion and curiosity.  Less: What’s wrong with you? And more: What happened to you? 

Right now my acid test for Metta is a certain contemporary political figure.  It is very easy for me to demonize this person; to call him a sociopath. When I am acting with Metta, I can ask him: what makes you behave the way you do? Personality disorder? Mental illness? A lifelong quest—unfulfilled—to obtain your father’s approval? Every moment I spend trying to understand what’s behind all that rage and malice is a moment that I am not dwelling in hatred.  I fail in this acid test a lot more often than I succeed. But as a human, I believe I am called to try.  

While Metta may sound noble, once again, it’s a selfish act. The Buddhists developed Metta as an antidote to fear.  Love and fear, they reasoned, cannot co-exist in our minds at the same time.  So I repeat the words of the Metta meditation. . .

May you be filled with lovingkindness, held in loving kindness; may you experience lovingkindness as your essence.  May the world know true peace. May all people be free.

When I repeat these words, I find my blood pressure dropping, my heart easing, my mood lifting ever so slightly.  In that moment, I move away from the darkness and a little bit closer to the light.

How then, shall I live? For the next eight months, this will be my recipe: equal parts perspective, action, and lovingkindness.  With a little feisty and spicy thrown in to season things.

If it works over the next eight months, it can probably work anytime.  Maybe it’s the dish I will continue to serve up every single day.