What is mine to carry?

There’s a lot going on in the world. So much is broken and it’s so easy to feel overwhelmed. So, what do we do? In a day and age where nearly everyone and everywhere on the planet is accessible to us, what does it mean to love our neighbor? How do we keep from being overwhelmed when the whole broken world is our village? How do we seek justice and mercy when the whole fucking world is bleeding? How do you know where to stanch the bleeding first?

We clearly can’t be responsible for, or advocate for, or learn about, or put our money and time towards EVERYTHING. Right? We are limited.

And we can’t just put our resources and intellect towards the things we know about — for two reasons: 1) we know about so much now and 2) sometimes the things we don’t know about are the very systems our ignorance supports and it’s important that we listen to others who know things we don’t, who have experienced things we haven’t.

But how do you listen when the whole world’s screaming?

I know at times (maybe even most of the time), these questions make me feel paralyzed. I handle them by going numb, effectively sticking my head in the sand.

But, we are all connected and wrong done to one is wrong done to many — whether I acknowledge it or ignore it.

I know some people handle these questions by saying, “Just focus on the things close to you, the things you have personal experience with.” And I think this holds some wisdom — we can’t be responsible for the world, we can only be responsible for our small particular place in the world. So, we do the best with what we have and what we know, just where we are.

But, while there is wisdom in that, it also holds it’s own folly. If I narrow my focus to only what I know, let’s say my house and the neighbor’s on my street, and ignore the neighborhood on fire two streets over, that fire is likely to come for my street too. You need only look briefly at history to find examples of this on a large scale.

But history will also show you examples of people rushing in to help and making things worse.

So, again I come back to these questions. What is mine to hold and do?

And here’s the honest truth. I don’t have any answers. I don’t have any advice, or suggestions, or solutions. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to hold all the hurt I know about.

But there are a few things I keep coming back to whenever these questions arise.

The first is the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. When I first started using the common prayer book, something that surprised me (and felt weird to my individualistic, evangelical, American upbringing) was that there were often times when the congregation prays for “all those who are sick” or “all those who are homeless” or “all those whose countries are torn apart by war” or that sort of thing. My first thought was what does that even mean? It felt too vague and general to pray. I couldn’t picture it. I had no concept of it. It felt heavy and overwhelming and paralyzing, the way it feels to contemplate how many grains of sand there are on a beach.

But then I started practicing Metta Mediation, or Loving-kindness meditation. And something shifted. I understood what it was to pray for “all those…”

In this practice you always start with yourself. You start with picturing yourself, imagining sending loving-kindness towards yourself, surrounding yourself with compassion, praying over yourself.

Remember the metaphor about putting your oxygen mask on first before helping the person sitting next to you? Maybe it’s a bit like that.

You can’t give from an empty well, but also you can’t stop there. You put your mask on and then you help the person next to you, and if the person beyond them is struggling, you help them too.

In Metta Mediation, you start with yourself, but then you move on, starting with someone else who is concrete, easy to picture, easy to feel compassion towards. It’s almost like practice — you can’t run a marathon when you’ve never run a mile. You have to start with something easier.

But again, you don’t stop there. You move out and out, until at last you come to “May all creatures everywhere be well.”

And here’s what I’ve found, when I practice loving-kindness meditation, by the time I get to “all creatures everywhere” it’s not a vague concept. It’s not too infinite and overwhelming. It’s like stretching something out slowly until it can take in more than it could have at the beginning. When I practice loving-kindness, I stretch my ability to hold compassion and move actively towards justice without overwhelm.

The other thing I keep coming back to and thinking about, is the idea of listening.

When the whole world is crying, screaming, demanding, it’s really hard to hear anything. We have to get quiet. We have to get still. We have to listen carefully. And we have to do that over and over again each and every time.

Loving-Kindness meditation isn’t a once-and-done thing. It’s a practice. A continual practice. So is justice. So is mercy. And maybe these are all things that we need to stretch out every time we practice them, starting small and growing bigger.

When I do a loving-kindness mediation it’s as much about listening as it is about anything else. Sometimes, through listening, I know I need to spend a long time practicing loving-kindness towards myself. It’s like a rubber band that won’t stretch any farther. Sometimes, I can extend the practice, but only part way. Other times, I can extend it all the way to “all creatures everywhere.” Each and every time is different and requires active listening.

Here’s the thing, we can’t ignore what’s happening in the world. We can’t only care about the things that directly influence us, but we also can’t jump to being the savior of everyone and everywhere — that leads nowhere good.

I think that justice, mercy, compassion are practices and every single time we approach something that asks them of us we have to stop. Get still. Get quiet. Listen. And come back to the tension in those questions above. Is this for me? Am I in a place right now where I can do something about this? Is this a situation where the other person wants help and support or not? What are they saying? How can I practice extending my loving-kindness today? How far can I stretch today? What can I do about this? And what can’t I do?

The answers to these questions aren’t a one-and-done thing either. They change from situation to situation, from day to day.

At least, that’s what I think right now.

Grace and peace,
Bethany