Head and Heart: In A Hard Time--Do Something

photo by Don McCullough / flickr

Everywhere I go these days almost everybody I talk to is singing the same sad song.

"I don't know what is going to happen to our country."

"I am pretty scared there days--I don't know where we are going."

"This country is a mess. I am seriously thinking of moving to Australia."

With all the chaos around us it really seems like "everything nailed down is coming loose." People can't take chaos but so long. Then they either break down, go crazy or tune out.

In the grief group I lead we're talking about "What keep you going?" And: "What are you trying to do to stay healthy?" The answers are varied but almost everyone in that circle is trying something to keep their heads above water.

One thing we all need is perspective. A good dose of history would help us all--some. I

used to tell my Counselor: "I'm depressed and I don't know what to do." She said: "Have you ever been depressed before?" Well, you know what my answer was. "Of course," I said. " Did it happen more than once?" And I laughed. She went on: "Well, you lived through it. And I think this will pass and you will live through this dark time, too." She was right.

History helps me here. Once in a while I think we have never been this messed up. Oh yes we have. Remember slavery and the Civil War with 620,000 dead. The country so divided we never thought it could come together. Remember the Depression which looked liked the bottom had dropped out of everything. Remember the fifties and all those little black kids that were spit on and screamed at just because they were trying to go to this new school.

Remember the sixties when our cities burned and we lost leader after leader in assassinations? Our nation has had its serious ups and downs since we began. I know we have a short memory in this country. So much around us seems like the end of it all. But pause and think--like my depression in that counseling room. I finally got through it. And from time to time it comes back--especially during the hard days. But guess what? I got through that too. And so will we.

In a hard time years ago someone asked a social worker: How can you get up and go to work and stand it with all that's going on today. The social worker smiled and said: "The only way I can make it is to rejoice in the smallest of victories."

The smallest of victories. Hmm. Teachers getting up day after day and trying their best to help their students. Somebody helping the homeless by making a place for them to stay warm and well-fed. The church that provides shoes for every single child at Christmas in a Title One school. The nurses and doctors. They wipe the fevered brows and whisper encouragement. That thank-you note you received from somebody that remembered what you did twenty years ago. Registering and voting--sometimes standing at the polling place for hours.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner. But we all need to remember that all the faces that flow into our lives day after day. Sit down and remember. During that terrible time in Germany there was a Pastor and church in a little tiny French town that saved hundreds of Jews from the gas chambers. They did this at great risk of their lives but they did what they could.

Make a list of all those that helped you along the way. Teachers and friends and pastors and rabbis and maybe some husband or wife or child. I remember a parent telling me that one day she got a note from her little girl. "Dear Mama, I hate you to your guts. Love, Ruth." Smiling, it kept that Mama going.

Open your eyes and do what you can. It matters terribly. These awful days of shootings and hatred and enormous divisions in this country do not have the last word. We do more than send "our thoughts and prayers" to all those hurting out there. We do something.

Someone asked Mother Teresa why she picked up those little dying children in India and all those starving around her. "It's so hopeless," that journalist said--"why do you do this?" And Mother Teresa replied, "Young man I do what I can where I am with what I have."

Want to help yourself and those around you in a hard time? Do something. And rejoice in the smallest of victories.