Life is a challenge at times. It’s messy, wonderful, painful, and always growth producing. That’s the beauty of being embodied as well as the sorrow of it. One of the gifts of this wonderful challenge of being human is participating in a society – being a member who can help create a future, and a tribe, that you want to live in.
There is a fair amount of blame being tossed around, all centering around the mess that’s been created. This generation didn’t get out the vote, that generation didn’t vote the way we wanted. Now, the next generation is faced with an even bigger struggle to wade through.
Well, guess what. Unfortunately, every generation is left with a mess to clean up that was delivered by the generation before. Check your history. After World War II, the Baby Boomers were left with the mess of a devastated Europe, Asia, and Africa. Economies were broken, there was fall-out (literally and figuratively) from the use of two atomic bombs. There was a massive change in societal structures because during the long years of the war, there were not enough men on the home front to keep the factories running, so women stepped up and did a damn fine job – but at the cost of a society that was built on the model of the men work in the factory and the women work in the home. I’m not advocating a return to that model. Good grief, no. I’m pointing out what a dramatic change that was, with deep repercussions in society and lingering ‘messes’ that had to be dealt with.
If that’s a little too close to home for you, check out the period after the Civil War. The war was fought for a variety of reasons – the most life-changing and society changing of them was the abolition of slavery, which had been a scourge on our national identity. After the victory, that group of 20-30 year olds were faced with the devastation of their own country, staggering loss of life (it effectively wiped out a whole swath of the younger population on both sides), and the ever-present threat of a return to slavery, if not by law, definitely in practice. They had to find a way to cope with the mess, heal it and hopefully grow kinder and move on.
Still too close to home? Jump back to the early 1500s. Henry VIII sat on the throne of England. One of his most dramatic acts for his country was pulling it out of its relationship with the Roman Catholic Church and establishing the Church of England. On the surface, it was a good thing. Guess what his children were left with? A religious war that careened between the pro-Catholic Mary who wanted everyone who wasn’t a Catholic dead and her successor, her uber-Protestant sister, Elizabeth I, who was willing to force the country to follow her path. Henry VIII’s mess took years for the next generations to resolve.
My point of this quickie history lesson is simply this – every generation gets left with a mess. It’s part of the human journey towards health and wholeness. Is it a pain in the ass? You bet. But every generation is called to a higher purpose, to create a society, a tribe that they want to live in, that reflects the heart-centered values that they aspire to. We are always evolving as a species. Sometimes we blow it. Okay, a lot of times we blow it. But when you look at the long arm of history, as Martin Luther King said, and I believe his words with every fiber of my being, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
So I am challenging myself to embrace this messy moment. To hold fast to the idea that it is an opportunity to be part of creating a lasting, loving, moving-toward-good zeitgeist in my society. I’ve screamed, ranted, cried, and mourned what might have been. Then, like Gandalf on the bridge, I’ve slammed my staff into the rock and challenged the darkness with, “You shall not pass into My tribe.” I hope you will too.
There is a fair amount of blame being tossed around, all centering around the mess that’s been created. This generation didn’t get out the vote, that generation didn’t vote the way we wanted. Now, the next generation is faced with an even bigger struggle to wade through.
Well, guess what. Unfortunately, every generation is left with a mess to clean up that was delivered by the generation before. Check your history. After World War II, the Baby Boomers were left with the mess of a devastated Europe, Asia, and Africa. Economies were broken, there was fall-out (literally and figuratively) from the use of two atomic bombs. There was a massive change in societal structures because during the long years of the war, there were not enough men on the home front to keep the factories running, so women stepped up and did a damn fine job – but at the cost of a society that was built on the model of the men work in the factory and the women work in the home. I’m not advocating a return to that model. Good grief, no. I’m pointing out what a dramatic change that was, with deep repercussions in society and lingering ‘messes’ that had to be dealt with.
If that’s a little too close to home for you, check out the period after the Civil War. The war was fought for a variety of reasons – the most life-changing and society changing of them was the abolition of slavery, which had been a scourge on our national identity. After the victory, that group of 20-30 year olds were faced with the devastation of their own country, staggering loss of life (it effectively wiped out a whole swath of the younger population on both sides), and the ever-present threat of a return to slavery, if not by law, definitely in practice. They had to find a way to cope with the mess, heal it and hopefully grow kinder and move on.
Still too close to home? Jump back to the early 1500s. Henry VIII sat on the throne of England. One of his most dramatic acts for his country was pulling it out of its relationship with the Roman Catholic Church and establishing the Church of England. On the surface, it was a good thing. Guess what his children were left with? A religious war that careened between the pro-Catholic Mary who wanted everyone who wasn’t a Catholic dead and her successor, her uber-Protestant sister, Elizabeth I, who was willing to force the country to follow her path. Henry VIII’s mess took years for the next generations to resolve.
My point of this quickie history lesson is simply this – every generation gets left with a mess. It’s part of the human journey towards health and wholeness. Is it a pain in the ass? You bet. But every generation is called to a higher purpose, to create a society, a tribe that they want to live in, that reflects the heart-centered values that they aspire to. We are always evolving as a species. Sometimes we blow it. Okay, a lot of times we blow it. But when you look at the long arm of history, as Martin Luther King said, and I believe his words with every fiber of my being, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
So I am challenging myself to embrace this messy moment. To hold fast to the idea that it is an opportunity to be part of creating a lasting, loving, moving-toward-good zeitgeist in my society. I’ve screamed, ranted, cried, and mourned what might have been. Then, like Gandalf on the bridge, I’ve slammed my staff into the rock and challenged the darkness with, “You shall not pass into My tribe.” I hope you will too.
