Cruel or beautiful?
What conclusions can we make? This is a beautiful world? This is a cruel world? There is strong evidence for both, and it is up to each one of us which we will tend to focus on the most. I agree with Richard Rohr and what neuroscience seems to teach: we just may be hard wired to pull to the negative side, giving more of our attention to the cruel rather than the beautiful. Therefore, we must put a great deal of deliberate energy into changing what comes natural.
Change is never easy, but it is possible. What motivation do we have? Would I rather be around someone who centers themselves on the cruel, the negative, the suffering or someone who catches glimpses of the beautiful and points them out? Why is it that we tend to think “being real” is admitting the prevalence of the negative? It’s not more prevalent. It may be louder. It may be more jarring. But this doesn’t equate to prevalence.
When I am in the sphere of seeing beauty, I am more open to wisdom. I am more open to possibility. I am more open. There is nothing naive or less real about choosing to see what works, what rises above, what will not — and cannot (unless I give it permission) — be buried by the negative.
I have been violently pushed into incredibly dark places in my life. In every one, even when the sorrow, the pain, the agony of the dark felt like it burned me clean through, I was very much aware of a light, the light, Light. I am familiar enough with that Light to know what heft comes with it, what grace, what way out. When I was ready, I made my way to it. We must all choose to make our way to it. Deliberately.
Reflection
In what ways are you teaching yourself to turn from the negative to the positive, from the cruel to the beautiful?
Prayer
Dear God, I am aware of your Light right now, intensely so, because I am still suffering the loss of my son. I must choose each hour, sometimes each minute, to turn toward you rather than the still stinging pain of his death. And this is multiplied over and over in every human being the world over. Choices to turn to beauty. My making the choice helps another make it, which helps another and another. Come, Holy Spirit, fill our hearts. Help us to choose beauty. Help us to choose you.