When it’s over, then what? Blog post June 2021

     I love seeing ideas with different slants on the same topic, in juxtaposition with each other. You find that in politics, in religion, and in discussion with your neighbours. If you keep an open mind you can often grow through expansion of your own thinking. My mentor in developmental psychology, Dr. Gordon Neufeld, points out that the ability to do this is one of our great developmental achievements. A three year old who wants you to come play with him can’t factor in that you are busy talking on the phone. They want you now. (There are a lot of three year olds around, aren’t there?) Neufeld describes the achievement as the ability to do ‘on the one hand..... on the other hand.’ On the one hand I want mommy right now. On the other hand I see that she is busy, so I will wait.

    I came across a couple of reflections that are relevant to the pandemic, notably to its outcome. They are not from the same publication, and only one spoke to the pandemic by name.      

    I will give you some selections, but before I do, what are your own thoughts? Is the world going to be a better place because of the pandemic? Or is it irreparably divided and damaged? Have we grown closer to each other or more suspicious of each other? Have you personally grown in any way or have you become more cynical about life?

    The Washington Post ran an Opinion piece by Salman Rushdie on May 24. Mr. Rushdie is feeling pretty negative, I think it is fair to say. He is cynical about the old adage of good things coming out of bad:

    I didn’t buy any of it, the stuff about divine or earthly retribution, or the dreams of a better future. Many people wanted to feel that some good would come out of the horror, that we would as a species somehow learn virtuous lessons and emerge from the cocoon of the lockdown as splendid New Age butterflies and create kinder, gentler, less greedy, more ecologically wise, less racist, less capitalist, more inclusive societies. This seemed to me, still seems to me, like Utopian thinking. The coronavirus did not strike me as the harbinger of socialism.

    He goes on to say that the damage done by the leaders of three countries in particular has been devastating:

    To repair the damage done by these people in these times will not be easy. I may not see the wounds mended in my lifetime. It may take a generation or more. The social damage of the pandemic itself, the fear of our old social lives, in bars and restaurants and dance halls and sports stadiums, will take time to heal (although a percentage of people seem to know no fear already). We will hug and kiss again. But will there still be movie theaters? Will there be bookstores? Will we feel okay in crowded subway cars?

    The social, cultural, political damage of these years, the deepening of the already deep rifts in society in many parts of the world, including the United States, Britain and India, will take longer. It would not be exaggerating to say that as we stare across those chasms, we have begun to hate the people on the other side. That hatred has been fostered by cynics and it bubbles over in different ways almost every day.

    Then he hits us where it really hurts:

    It isn’t easy to see how that chasm can be bridged — how love can find a way.

    What do you think? Does he strike a chord? On the one hand. He seems to make a good case. On the other hand .....

    Well, check this out.

    The daily email I get from The Plough and its Daily Dig has an uncanny ability to hit the sweet spot on emotional, psychological, social, and spiritual matters. Here’s the one that caught my eye in juxtaposition with Mr. Rushdie’s piece. It is by Eberhard Arnold, dated April 29:

    It is a simple thing: joy in everything that lives. Anyone who can rejoice in life, in other people, in the fellowship of church community – anyone who feels joy in the mutual relationships of trust and inner fellowship – such a person experiences what love is. Anyone who cannot feel joy cannot live.… Only where there is joy do love and justice dwell. We need the spirit of joy to overcome the gloomy spirit of covetousness, the spirit of unjust mammon and its deadly hate. We can only have such joy if we have faith, and if we believe that the earth has a future.

    I sat with that one for a while. On the one hand.....you can’t have joy and hate at the same time. You can’t have joy and cynicism at the same time. You can’t have joy and gloomy despair at the same time. Self-evident.

    On the other hand ....... you can have joy and love at the same time, You can have joy and faith at the same time.

    If you have joy and love you would seem to be in the sweet spot where the ‘chasm of hatred can be bridged.’ Rushdie, for all his cynicism, seems to want us there.

    Joy is a feeling but it is a bit different from happiness. You may not be happy in times of hardship. But you can be joyful: Anyone who can rejoice in life, in other people, in the fellowship of church community – anyone who feels joy in the mutual relationships of trust and inner fellowship – such a person experiences what love is.  

    The hardships of the pandemic may well continue for a while. On the one hand, we will make them worse with cynicism and hatred, as Rushdie implies.

    On the other hand, he points to the solution, which is love. And Eberhard Arnold tells us how to get there. By rejoicing. Again:  Anyone who can rejoice in life, in other people, in the fellowship of church community – anyone who feels joy in the mutual relationships of trust and inner fellowship – such a person experiences what love is.
 
    You may have discerned by now that many events of everyday life are generally out of our control but that events and reactions are not the same thing. It is so important that we do not give away our control of those reactions. We get to decide in favour of joy. Brilliant, yes? Because with it comes all good things, including the solution to the damage of the pandemic.
    
    On the one hand ....   On the other hand .....