Torn Between Desires

November also brings the anticipation of Thanksgiving--the prospect of sitting down with extended family over a literal bounty of food and being intentional about our gratitude. We actually say grace at the dinner table on Thanksgiving, something we do but a few times a year. There is a certain holiness to that day, to that communion of loved ones. Some of those gathered at the table have changed over the years, the location has changed somewhat from year to year, but the feeling is always the same. It is the same feeling I had as a little girl, sitting at the kids' table with my siblings and cousins. This is my family. I have a place here. I am surrounded by people I love.

Perhaps it is the very anticipation of Thanksgiving that awakens me to the beauty of November. Perhaps I spend the month in training for the big day. Training in gratitude, if you will. There is much to be grateful for. The trees, the light, the birds, the dark, my home... those are only the beginning.

And yet. (We all knew there was an and yet.)

It is impossible to not be fully aware of all the world's problems, especially at this time of year. Perhaps you feel it astutely as we charge full steam ahead into the holiday season. I know that many of us feel personal joy at this time of year, while knowing all too well that too many of the world's people are not living under joyful circumstances. It is hard, for me, anyway, to reconcile my own personal comfort with the suffering of millions. I stand here this morning singing out praises for the night, when the darkness brings fear and despair to many of our world's people. It is a luxury to contemplate the beauty of the trees and the light.

The essayist and author E.B. White wrote, "It's hard to know when to respond to the seductiveness of the world and when to respond to its challenge. If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between the desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."

I don't know as though I would go so far as to say I plan my day around either of these endeavors. Both the seductiveness of the world and its challenges tend to present themselves to me spontaneously and organically. I tend not to be intentional on a daily basis in either my desire to improve the world or my desire to enjoy it. I just take each as it comes. Still, I am aware of a real tension. It is particularly pronounced at this time of year. There is so much to be joyful about, and there is much that gives one a feeling of despair about the world.

Consider the following:

According to UNICEF, 30,000 children under age five die each day due to poverty. And they "die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death."

That is about 210,000 children each week, or just under 11 million children under five years of age, each year. [Unicef]

"Today, across the world, 1.3 billion people live on less than one dollar a day; 3 billion live on less than two dollars a day; 1.3 billion have no access to clean water; 3 billion have no access to sanitation; 2 billion have no access to electricity." [James Wolfenson, The Other Crisis, World Bank, October 1998, quoted from The Reality of Aid 2000, (Earthscan Publications, 2000), p.10]

Now, these are statistics that we've all heard before and, frankly, have probably become somewhat immune to. They become little more than numbers after a certain point. But think about it. Why are thirty thousand children dying each day, when we have the resources to keep everyone on the planet fed and nourished? Does this make you a little bit angry?

There is a bumper sticker I like, which says, "If you're not angry, you're not paying attention." I believe in anger. It spurs us toward action. Love motivates us in many ways; a pure love of humanity and compassion will lead us to do good work, but anger--good anger, constructive anger--is sometimes what we need to propel us forward. Think of Jesus in the temple in Jerusalem. Do you recall learning about his anger at the money-changers he found there? How angry he was that they had turned his Father's house into a market? How he turned their tables over in anger and drove them all from the temple, some say with a whip he fashioned out of some cord? Unitarian Universalist minister Gary Smith writes that "This is no 'little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.' This is a man who waged war with the powers and principalities of his day, and who tried to turn the world upside down: The poor and the persecuted enter the kingdom, those who mourn will be comforted, the meek will get it all, those who hunger and thirst will be filled, the peacemakers will finally be recognized."

How do you think Jesus would think we were doing on these accounts today?

Do we really need anger? After all, there seems to be too much anger and hatred out there in the world already, and this is what's causing so many of our problems. We don't need anger. We need peace and understanding. Well, yes and no. Of course we need peace, and of course we need understanding. But I think there's such a thing as a loving anger--Rebecca Parker calls it "a benevolent rage"--an anger or rage that all the world's people are not treated with dignity and respect, or that children are dying because they do not have access to the most basic of necessities, or that we humans are destroying our earth and its co-inhabitants. There is so much to be angry about. It can begin to feel overwhelming if one thinks about it too much. Especially if one, like E.B. White, has a "desire to improve the world." Where in the world does one start?

Perhaps it starts with identifying that loving anger and then doing something about it. I am not going to change the world, but I can do something. To sit idly by is to let the evil or injustice prevail. I have spent too much of my life thus far sitting idly by. I have done some good deeds, it's true, but as I mentioned earlier, I tend not to be intentional on a daily basis in my desire to improve the world. What would happen if I awoke each morning and asked myself, what small thing, what big thing, can I do to address some injustice in the world?

But one cannot live fully and with integrity in the world simply by acting on anger, even if it is a loving anger. "... If you really want to help this world," writes Joseph Campbell, "What you will have to teach is how to live in it. And that no one can do who has not themselves learned how to live in the joyful sorrow and the sorrowful joy of the knowledge of life as it is." He says further, "Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy."

We can choose to live in joy. We can choose to revel in the world's beauty even as we rage at its injustice. In fact, we must.

In the reading earlier this morning, I shared these words by Rebecca Parker:

The choice to bless the world is more than an act of will
       a moving forward into the world
with the intention to do good.
It is an act of recognition,
       a confession of surprise,
       a grateful acknowledgement
that in the midst of a broken world
unspeakable beauty, grace and mystery abide.
There is an embrace of kindness,
that encompasses all life,
even yours.
And while there is injustice,
       anesthetization, or evil
there moves
a holy disturbance,
a benevolent rage,
a revolutionary love
protesting, urging, insisting
that which is sacred will not be defiled.
Those who bless the world live their life
as a gesture of thanks
for this beauty
and this rage.

It is good to recall the words of the Buddhist Thich Nhat Hahn:

The good news is that you are alive,
that the linden tree is still there,
standing firm in the harsh Winter.
The good news is that you have wonderful eyes
to touch the blue sky...
The dandelion is there by the sidewalk,
smiling its wondrous smile,
singing the song of eternity.
Listen! You have ears that can hear it.
Bow your head.
Listen to it...
The latest good news
is that you can do it.

Julie Parker Amery