Election Blues: Hoping against Despair

Letters to America #2: Three prescriptions for all who are stressed out with the (election) news cycle.

Taking in a last paddle up north. (All photos by A. Furchert)

Friends and fellow pilgrims,

“What meaningful can I still do?” a German client desperately asked me several weeks ago in face of the never ending conflicts on this planet. “What meaningful can I do?,” many Americans ask these days facing another US election. “Will my vote make a difference?,” or: “Will we ever recover from this cycle of blame and hatred and division?”

In-midst of this climate of fearful anticipation I am reminded of Krista Tippet’s: “We must insist on joy…,” as she wrote in one of her letters:

“Whatever is before us, we must insist on joy wherever and whenever we can find it, must honor creaturely release and comfort and delights, for these are our human birthright of fuel for persisting, for orienting insistently towards what is life-giving, within every righteous struggle that is ours to face.”

And I am grateful for these words as they offer me a life line to hang on to. Joy is not just a feeling, it is a life giving necessity. We must honor it and cradle it and persist on it.

There is even a presidential ticket in this year’s US election which thinks joy is a winning message: Make American joyful again.

It is a message against fear and the click bait of hatred which makes us click more and consume more but leaves us more empty and fearful than before.

Having grown up in Germany with our history of Hitler’s Reich and Communist East Germany, I am especially weary of any kind of demagogy, especially the rhetoric which hijacks Christian faith in the service of despising others.

So how can we be joyful despite such hateful and dangerous rhetoric?

How can we be hopeful despite wars raging?

How can I invite you to ponder the season’s unfolding, shall we, must we even?

And still, we must live and we must breathe despite a bleeding world.

We must live for the lifeless, breathe for the breathless, hope for the hopeless, lift our voice for the voiceless.

We must defend truth and call out false prophets. We must believe in our shared humanity and defend it.

We must insist on embracing our lives to the fullest in every moment.

This, my friends, is not neglect, nor is it avoidance. It is instead necessary for the survival of humankind.

And while the first leaves tumble to the ground before our window, I offer my humble fragments today as a Letter to America for all in need of some medicine against despair.

Sending you much love, Almut with Chuck and little one

Hoping against despair #1:
Protecting from overload

Watching water swirl. Autumn invites us to become part of creation in transformation. Coming and going, blooming and fading, filling and emptying.

One of the first things professional helpers must learn is to not be consumed by the suffering of the one they help. We live in a world where we are every day confronted by bad news. Children are being traumatized just by the images they see on the news. Psychologists even have a name for it: secondary traumatization. It is a known phenomenon. We see these cruel images of inhumanity so often that we risk falling into survivor mode ourselves, becoming numb to all the pain. Our capacity to take in suffering is limited. Too much of it numbs us. Our emotional self shuts down in order to protect its resources.

At the same time, we might feel some “survivor’s guilt” creeping in: How can we be merry, even joyful, in the face of the world’s tragedy?

The same is true for the heated, emotional, accusatory, apocalyptic monologues to which we are exposed in every medium in this tumultuous election cycle.

Demagogues know this well. They count on us becoming numb to their attacks on human decency.

But as every helper must learn to be present to, but not overwhelmed by, the pain to which we tend, we must also learn how to protect our hearts from overload.

Tending to our hearts first is not selfish. Nor is it a call to passivity. It is rather the bracing antidote to falling into numbness and despair. We must never grow numb to the fact that dropping bombs on family homes are unacceptable solutions in the 21 century. We must demand change and wisdom from the leaders of this world and hold them accountable.

We must never grow numb when leaders demonize whole groups of our society.

We must never grow numb when truth is bend for the benefit of a few.

We must insist on and vote for leaders who lead with virtue instead of vice.

But in order to take part in this task, we must keep our hearts alive. We cannot allow the megalomaniacs and war mongers of this world to also terrorize our hearts, to also poison our daily living.

We must first find peace within in order to change the world.

Beauty of the transient.

Hoping against despair #2:
Embracing the moment

Two things have helped me in these last weeks: Embracing the season and watching my child play. Her innocent and playful approach jumping into Autumn leaves and water puddles has come to my rescue again and again.

This “first immediacy” of a child, as Kierkegaard has it (Tillich would later call it “dreaming innocence”) is what we adults have lost, must lose in order to reflect and become conscious of ourselves. But in order to deepen ourselves the task of our adult life is now to regain some of this child like immediacy. It is not exactly what today’s mantra of “living in the moment” means, it is more like “being alive to the moment,” being present to the present moment.

In a world where bad news is delivered not only to our doorsteps but even into our bedrooms via our devices, we must regain the ability simply to be present to life’s unfolding in front of and within us (and I have to admit, I am often not very good at it!). Thus we must remind ourselves:

There is beauty despite our sorrow. Leaves rattling under our feet during a long Fall walk, warm blankets welcoming us back inside, heat coming from a crackling fire, even dust bunnies dancing in the waning rays of the sun. The feelings of bliss and the burden of daily life intermingle.

Watching-my-child-throwing-pebbles into the Mississippi. Have you tried throwing pebbles lately?

I call it WMCTP: Watching my child throwing pebbles :-) Is there a more innocent act to witness than childlike immersion in action? And while I watch my child enjoying each step of her pebble throwing – finding the stone, testing it in her little hands, getting to the waters edge, taking a deep breath, bending deep and then, just push what ever, and then jump in celebration when the stone ripples the water – it breaks my heart open.

As I see my child playing in the Autumn sun without the burden of the world on her shoulders, I not only see her, but I see all children in her. I see her throwing her pebbles for Hamin, who lays buried under rubble with his 3 little siblings in Gaza, or for Irina, who longs for a drop of fresh water in her burned out living room in Ukraine. And for little Katie, who saw her house being swept away by a hurricane. My daughter’s innocent play holds the whole universe. And I must bend my knees and confess my sins. How little do I see of what she has to teach me, of what every child has to teach us?

Contemplating a child play helps us tap into our shared humanity that transcends political affiliation, ethnicity or gender. It reminds us that there is no difference between the children of Ukraine, Israel or Gaza, nor of Springfield, Haiti or Asheville or elsewhere.

Autumn still-life. There is a certain melancholy within the waters when the nights get longer, the air crisper, and the trees empty themselves of their colors. Do you feel it, too?

Hoping against despair #3:
Taking heart

But wait, what did you tell your client,? you might ask.

Fortunately, existential therapy is rather a quite tender dance. I do not give much advice nor do I have the answers. I am rather the listener who sits with you for a while trying to untangle what is coming up and where it leads us.

Usually it leads us not into the outside world but right into the working of our very own hearts. Because the problem isn’t so much the problem as it shows itself in the external, but rather what it does with us in our innermost being.

That means the problem is becoming paralyzed, or numb, or desperate, or helpless over the troubles of the world. And the solution is, somehow, to be sensitive and responsive to the troubles of a troubling world.

Thus the work against despair starts inside, where we sit with our feelings of fear, helplessness, anger or despair. Where we look objectively at them and see how they are connected to our very own journey.

This looking can lead us to the place where the Divine wants to dwell in us. But this is a story for another post – or a personal conversation.

For now, dear reader, take heart. Allow yourself to live and to breathe, to lament and to cry out, to dance and to sing for all of creation. Lean into the season of continual renewal. Look for the good. Expect the good. Demand the good.

And then choose joy over hate :-)

Late bloomers. Every night I roll our little red cart stuffed with late bloomers back into the garage just to roll it out the next morning. This little act of resistance gives me profound joy to prolong the season beyond the first cooler Fall nights :-)

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In case you missed it

On Spiritual home coming: Your (mid)weekly blessing with Julian of Norwich.

"Cosmic Partnership:" Hildegard of Bingen on living in harmony with all creation.

I got verbally assaulted by a preacher man with the police standing by. Welcome to America!