Looking for peace and courage amid the darkness
Dear friends,
Despite people telling us how the art of letter writing is dead, smothered by Instagram, Twitter and Messaging, for me letter writing is not only still alive, but an art in which the spontaneous flow of thoughts, beliefs, concerns and caring can be shared. That is why I write letters to you.
Since my last column I have been in transitional sadness: not a real category in therapy, my category. My bed with its electric mattress cover is almost hypnotic in its allure. Bears hibernate. Actually bears do not hibernate, they go into torpor — asleep, but easily aroused — that sounds more like me!
Winter darkness, late sunrise, early sunset, failed expectations of Xmas, fatigue from too much effort and too much money spent, and too often not enough joy. For those of you who emerged blissfully into January with no bruises — I envy you. For most of us winter sadness is all too real. We sense our own mortality. We fear icy falls, the flu, and worse, the death of friends. One of the people I work with said sadly: “There are too many dead friends in my little phone book.”
Yet, my dear ones, the sun sets and rises with a particular January intensity. The birds come flocking to my feeders defying the cold. The tree shadows dance with the wind on the canvas of untouched snow on my field.
While eating a breakfast of raisin cinnamon toast, oatmeal with granola and fresh coffee, I read the news: beheadings, political lies and stupidity, Monsanto polluting our farms, children freezing and starving in refugee camp tents — I shudder. They have to carry jugs of polluted water to drink, while in our big cities doormen water the streets with hoses to wash away dog shit.
How is it that we have more prisoners in jail than any other nation? And why do we abuse and torture prisoners? Why, while I eat my toast, richly buttered and spread with blueberry jam from Maine, are children in our country, in our own state, going to school hungry and sick, and going to bed tired and cold?
Today I learned a new word: aporia.
I found this word in an essay by Charles D’Ambrioso, in his collection “Loitering: New and Collected Essays.” A word, sounding so liquid. It comes from the Greek, a-poros, meaning without passage, a place of doubt, loss and confusion. Perfect for what I am going through: I am at a loss how to think, what course to pursue and what to say about the conflicts I see in my world. I am in an aporia of quicksand, struggling to reach out and grasp firmly the branches of the olive tree hanging above me, to magically step out of the mire into a field of resolution and understanding. Yet I must live in this aporia — in the reality of a world of conflicting non-understandable realities that awe and horrify us.
I want the snow outside my windows to remain crystalline. I want the sound of the mourning doves to compete with the starlings and the chickadees and the red-headed woodpecker. I want the beauty and peace of my home in the Connecticut woods.
The pictures of the world intrude, demanding attention. If I am to be of this world I must not shut out those other pictures or even dim them. But how to reconcile the beauty with the horrors? How to keep sane when the pictures collide? “Light one candle,” say the Franciscan Brothers, “do not curse the darkness.” Reach out your hand: There are many here in our Connecticut paradise who may need to hold it. Limited as we all are by the factors of our lives, perhaps this is how to begin to find release from aporia and reach some resolution. Patiently. Slowly. Carefully. With intelligence and gratitude. With hope, compassion and love.
A Girl Scout song comes to mind, one I sang years ago at my first Girl Scout overnight camp, sitting around the fire:
Peace I ask of thee, oh river.
Peace, peace, peace.
When I learn to live serenely,
Cares will cease.
From the hills I gather courage
Visions of the days to be
Strength to lead and faith to follow
All are given unto me.
May the river of life give us all peace and courage.
Looking for peace and courage amid the darkness was first published in The Lakeville Journal Company newspapers, Tricorner News
