We Are Alive in This Chaotic World

On resisting conclusion

I want to write something longer, but I’ve very little time this morning. I’m preparing a project about Gloria Naylor’s novel Mama Day; going through the archives and sifting through her handwritten outlines and notes. So, I will keep this brief.

This week has been filled with so much pain for the world, and I have seen a lot of despair. Despair, fear, and hopelessness.

I thought I’d share what helps me through my own despair.

Despair is integral to our human experience. There is no such thing as eternal peace unless perhaps we have died. We live in a universe whose true spiritual origins we cannot trace. Why are we here? What is our purpose?

To witness? To help? To destroy?

The answers live inside us and they are never definitive, nor can they be proven correct.

Life is an assignment for which we do not have the rubric.

When I am overcome with pain I remember that pain is inevitable. I can resist it or welcome it. When I welcome pain I am more alive, because I am not turning away from a…