December 21, 2024
Every day I am sad about what is happening in the world. In Gaza, in Syria, incredible tragedy and overwhelming human suffering. Prisoners are being liberated from the Sednaya Prison, nicknamed the Human Slaughterhouse. This from Wikipedia:
[It is] estimated in January 2021 that 30,000 detainees were killed by the Assad regime in Sednaya from torture, ill-treatment and mass executions since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, while Amnesty International estimated in February 2017 "that between 5,000 and 13,000 people were extrajudicially executed at Sednaya between September 2011 and December 2015."
One newscaster said that women were raped and gave birth in the prison, their children never seeing the light of day. The level of atrocity is mind-boggling. And Tulsi Gabard believes Asad was a friend to the United States. Gabard will be the Director of National Intelligence. OUR NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE. She's a Russian apologist. It's truly sickening.
I think about the depths of depravity humans are capable of. I am distraught over the state of the world. I am desperately fearful for our country. It seems that evil really is taking over, that there is no hope. I succumb to nihilism at times. Those times are terrifying. I try to bring myself up and out, but I’m not even sure there is a reason to believe anything other than the worst.
I just saw this Facebook post and remembered the times that people have paid for my restaurant meals without me knowing who. It has happened twice that I can remember, but perhaps more. Those two times I was eating alone, probably looking contemplative, which may have been interpreted as lonely and forlorn. Or maybe I was contemplative and lonely and forlorn. It is always an unexpected and welcome gift to be recognized for my presence, to be noticed, and to know that I matter.
The other day at Starbucks, the woman at the window said, “Your order was paid for by the car in front of you… She was number nine to pay for the person behind her… if you want to keep it going…” She was reluctant to say that last part, but I was so thankful for the opportunity.
This evening, Saturday night, at my laptop, looking out at the dark rainy night, very few cars on the road. Oh my, I didn’t realize how late it is, 11:36. Well… It is hard to be positive right now, this moment.
I search my memory for the times when small acts of kindness have profoundly impacted me. I am thinking about how I put an extra protein bar in my purse on the two days a week that I work, because there is always the same man at the Glisan exit with a sign, “Anything helps God bless”. When there is a red light, when I can, I hand him the bar. He is always thankful. A warmth spreads inside, filling me with gratefulness, and I smile for a long while. Until I get to work and the tasks at hand demand my full attention.
I am thinking about how blessed I am to have my part-time job. I work for a small business, owned by a woman who is slow to trust. Incredibly slow to trust. A delightful woman, but a micro-manager. She can be exasperating, but for some reason, I extend her much grace. Even when I complain to David about something she’s said or done that is either tactless or thoughtless, that frustration dissipates. She is a product of her experiences. I hope that I can color them a bit more positively by being on time, consistent, and entirely focused on accuracy. I’ve made some progress; she’s let her guard down a bit. I’ve been there for ten months, and she gave me a key yesterday. We practiced how to disarm and set the alarm. I manage her occasional hurtful comments by detaching and recognizing her attitude is about her and not me. She knows my story, and for the most part, she is accommodating, she is kind. But she knows my story and she knows my faults and weaknesses.
Last week, I had a major anxiety attack at work. I cried, and I was shaking, I couldn’t focus, I was completely paranoid about making a mistake. Because when I am having that level of anxiety, all I do, it seems, is make mistakes. It doesn’t happen often that I have anxiety attacks at work. But it does happen. She was annoyed but at the same time concerned. And in spite of that, in spite of the frustrations that we visit upon one another, and in spite of the inevitable mistakes she finds in my work, she is committed to having me there. I could not ask for a better arrangement. She works around my school schedule. It’s a near perfect situation for me. I am beyond thankful to have connected with her.
There are so many Big Bad Things. Suffering beyond comprehension. And yet, there are so many small, kind, loving things. So, which will win out? Will the depths of the depravity of humankind take over? Will evil win out? Or will the small kindnesses and accommodations and graciousness we extend to one another further good to the degree that evil will be overcome?
I don’t know the answer to that question.
When the darkness, when the nihilism takes over, when I sit here at my laptop on a Saturday night, chastising myself for not getting out of the apartment, I cry. But then there are unexpected glimpses of the light of good. Small, tiny individual acts of kindness and connection that bring pinpoints of light to the dark.
I vacillate. I bounce between despair and hope. More despair. That seems to be my nature, it’s my default state. I’ve tried to be more positive; I truly have. But it’s just not my nature. I’ve come to believe that’s something I should just accept and stop self-shaming because it’s not necessarily wrong to see the glass half empty. It’s simply my nature. I am good and bad and everything in between and I need to accept and embrace that fact. In spite of that, I’d like to believe we all have the capacity to bring light into the world. Do we?
I don’t know the answer to that question.
Pay for the car behind you at Starbucks, as often as you can. And you can. Because if you can afford Starbucks, you can afford to pay for the car behind you.
Because ya, they can afford Starbucks, too, but there’s something about the act that is life changing — both for the giver and the receiver.
There may be no reason to hope, but I cling to Hope. She seems quite far from me this evening.
But then, there's Smoky... He needs me. I'm giving him a life no one else can give him. A really fantastic cat life. The best. That means something. Right?
Many tears this evening.
And yet.
I Persevere. And life goes on.
"We are embraced by a moral order. What we call good and evil are not just preferences that this or that set of individuals invent according to their tastes. Rather, slavery, cruelty and rape are wrong at all times and in all places, because they are an assault on something that is sacred in all times and places, human dignity. Contrariwise, self-sacrificial love, generosity, mercy and justice are not just pleasant to see. They are fixed spots on an eternal compass, things you can orient your life toward."
-David Brooks