When Everything Lurches, Make Your Mind an Anchor
We’re all being tested — not by battle, but by conscience
Calm is a precondition of confidence. Who can feel sure in a roar?
Today our ship of state is heaving, pitching, yawing in mountainous seas. Our captain, whose only talent is for disruption, keeps making matters worse. Individually and collectively, we’re clinging to guardrails not to be swept overboard. Our hearts are in our throats; so are our guts. Every moment another dangerous lurch. Might the unthinkable occur? The Titanic, too, was guaranteed not to sink.
Anxiety unsettles judgment and befouls our mood. I’m reluctant to wake to read the headlines. My rule is to write what’s on my mind, but no, I can’t, not that again! It’s like suffering a mortal disease: it’s boring to discuss, yet we can’t think of anything else.
Many talented analysts are assaying the damage being done. Bless their voices! My concern is the condition of our souls, mine and yours: how to cope, engage, counsel, console, make sense of where we find ourselves. My thoughts turn to the Carmelite nuns awaiting the guillotine during France’s Reign of Terror. How to stay whole in hell! How to keep faith with mankind, who could make such misery, or with a God, who’d permit it!
Though there’s nothing helpful to say, saying sometimes helps. Misery clings to company: we are not alone in our dread. My dreams keep an ear cocked for a knock on my door. Thank Heavens I’m not Harvard!
Is our peril so dire? Maybe not – but that’s more than any of us knows. Reassurances ring hollow with such wreckage around. Whatever we say to keep our spirits up, our subconscious prepares for the worst. My thoughts turn to the excruciating final moments of King Lear:
Kent: Is this the promised end?
Edgar: Or image of that horror?
Albany: Fall, and cease!
The good news about a dire diagnosis is it burns away the bullshit. “Depend upon it, sir,” harrumphed Dr. Johnson, “when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” Quit caterwauling, I chide myself; quit feeling angry at fellow citizens and sorry for myself; make the best use of whatever time remains.
My thoughts turn to the mighty German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, deciding to defy Jesus and join a plot to kill Hitler. Even “Thou shalt not kill,” it turned out, was a tentative prohibition, depending on circumstance.
My job, I figure, is the same as always – to bear witness – only now the assignment feels more urgent. My thoughts turn to Boethius (480-524), imprisoned for speaking truth, writing his great book, On the Consolation of Philosophy, while awaiting execution. He made his life a gift to posterity, however little remained. Contemplation rescued him from self-pity.
My thoughts turn to these predecessors as examples, from whom to draw strength. Yes, things are bad, but they’ve been worse, and humans found ways not just to endure, but to radiate goodness from darkness. Isn’t it a privilege, I chivvy myself, to witness such a defining drama? I never went to war. Now war has come to me, not a skirmish, but a flat-out face-off between Good and Evil. War proves character: who panics, who flinches, who surrenders, who stands firm. This war enlists us all and reveals what we’re made of. That’s interesting, no?
Thinking calms me, hauling me from my funk, transforming calamity to opportunity. My words make this hour matter, though it be an hour of gloom. Yes, we can turn lead to gold, with the elixir of intellect. Using our heads helps us toward happier hearts.