In these turbulent times, as we witness much that we’ve taken for granted – from institutions to social mores – crumble and fall away we have a choice.
To throw our hands up in powerlessness, deny our agency with a plaintive ‘what can I do as one individual?’ We can run away and hide. Or we can choose to stand in the fire of destruction and the rebirth that will surely blossom, being ready to nurture the new into a flourishing and better world.
The former is about absenting/absence, the latter about presence.
It’s a presence fuelled by hope, by faith, by optimism, by a sense of being connected to something greater than ourselves and recognising our place in an interdependent world. When we look at it through the lens of interdependent system our one-ness is no longer just us, the small self – but all of us, humanity.
This sense of unity, of connection with all, grows from deep reflection. The calm, stable inner world that results supports a refusal to back down or away from a world in need, not from belligerence but from commitment to a greater good than our own self-focused needs and desires.
And it shows up in the quality of our thoughts and words, in where we place our attention and energy, in each moment, in the refinement of our actions and interactions focused on making a positive difference.
Sure, we can choose to give up, step away from the service the world is calling us to. But then we’d miss the extraordinary beauty of the new world I feel sure is breaking through the cracks in the old. Let’s stick around, present, together.