Our Hardest Times; Birth Of The Next Greatest Generation?

Passover for Jews and Holy Week for Christians come this year during what has been projected as the most death-dealing week of the 2020 pandemic.

We are descending into an abyss without the normal physical embrace and comfort of extended family, friends, and community. There is no coincidence that these two most sacred observations coincide with what might well be one of the hardest of times. We are even restricted as to who can remain at the side of a dying loved one. And funerals are conducted when many can only attend online. Perhaps the truth we are being shown is that the most terrible things always yield to new beginnings. Could it be that our descent into darkness is leading to freedom from bondage and rebirth? Maybe the Next Greatest Generation is taking form.

It's hard to grasp that we must endure difficulties in order to fully triumph.  This is unfathomable in our modern world that rejects and honors only success and celebrates only strength.  We have been laboring under a Post World War II illusion that life is measured by achievement after achievement and continual accomplishments. 

There has been both a spoken and unspoken understanding that we should be climbing from one height to the next. The real struggle, descending into depths and failure, known well by The Greatest Generation, has been rejected.  Nowadays we love to celebrate the emancipation of Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt and the empty tomb on Easter Sunday.

But waiting with bitter herbs while ten plagues destroy everything is not so uplifting. Sitting beside the tortured sacrifice on a bloody cross as dark clouds gather is not a place we wish to linger. Yet, turning away from pain and loss makes it almost impossible to accept the reality that hard times are harbingers of a phoenix who rises from his own ashes with renewed power and beauty.

“You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.
”

— ~ Ernest Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises)

The most terrible things that have happened always yield to something transformational.  I think about Auschwitz and The Holocaust with ghastly images and unimaginable misery. Their devastation cannot be undone. But from the ashes of horror came a homeland for Israel along with awakenings to our inhumanity from people like Elie Wiesel, Anne Frank, Viktor Frankl, and so many others.  We have been challenged to change. 

All of us are flawed in one way or another.  Never on a road of continual achievement and success, we travel downward into the place where we find out who we really are.  We find salvation on the same journey that Jesus takes with his cross and on which the Israelites find freedom.  But we must choose.  We can travel downward to receive wisdom and peace or we can run forward grabbing for whatever gives us temporary happiness.

By medicating with drugs and washing away reality with alcohol, money, sex, gambling, food, and entertainment, we flee from anything that hurts.  This flight from ashes is not anything akin to rising from them.  We are missing the point. 

For when we allow ourselves to experience dreams which have turned to dust, grieve losses and admit our failures, we are empowered to become a new creation.  We will have learned the lessons of humanity just like our ancestors.  We will have an appreciation for the suffering of others.  We will be endowed with a strength that comes from compassion rather than aggression.  We will rise.  We will rise. We will rise. Welcome to the Next Greatest Generation.

Transformational Suffering; Saved from the Calmness

In the calm of ordinary life, we often feel indestructible and empowered by accomplishments. Our identity is wrapped up in the role of human-doings rather than human-beings.

But now calmness has been taken away as the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) transforms who we are.

As we confront our vulnerability, stripped of our masks and hiding places, we might just awaken as a new creation.

What seems to be destroying us could be saving us.

An old friend from my hometown posed a series of questions on his FaceBook page which are on the minds of many of us. He and his wife had a long conversation about what our country might be like when this virus subsides and life outside our homes begins anew. 

"Will small businesses be willing to risk a lot of debt to restart?  How many restaurants will close permanently?  How high will our taxes have to go up to recover part of what governments are having to spend now?  Will social distancing be the new norm in all public venues?  How will the health care industry prepare for the next pandemic, because there will be a next one. And, that preparedness is going to cost us all a pretty penny. So many what-ifs."

There are no answers to his questions of course. Only speculation. Our increased awareness after having faced physical/social isolation, fear, and powerlessness, will have a lasting effect on how we navigate life. It is doubtful that our notions of self-reliance, pulling up by the bootstraps, and sheer positive determination will remain our long suit. Sadly though, the what-ifs could be replaced by if-onlys on the other side unless we are transformed by these experiences. 

We have been offered an unexpected gift during these days, weeks and months of confinement and loss. We will have an opportunity to realign and rotate our set of tires. With more time taken for silence, prayer, and meditation, important questions will surface which transcend those posed regarding what will become of us. 

Longing to be close to one another, we ask whether loved ones know how much they are treasured and whether we show it nearly enough. Harboring old grudges, we ask whether we have forgiven or asked forgiveness. Carelessly swerving through our days we wonder if it is possible to slow down, savor, and be more grateful. I wonder if we could take ourselves off of auto-pilot?

New and better people will show up when traveling the world with these new tires we have been given. Calm will return after this storm. Personal growth mixed with a deeper appreciation for what is most important will lead our transformed selves to be more accepting and less judgmental. Our suffering will have led us to a new freedom and new understanding. It is that which will bring us to the fullness of life for which we have always searched. 

So, even as I find myself longing to be close to you, my aching heart anticipates all of the wonderful days to come when we will be reunited in a wonderfully transformed and unfettered love.

Surviving Trauma; Transforming Pain and Suffering

We have survived somehow. Through all of the trials and tribulations, pain and suffering, we have come out on the other side. Often bruised, damaged, and somewhat worse for the wear, we have overcome adversity to meet the challenges of today. It hasn't all been a bed of thorns of course. There has been plenty of sun drenched days and ample amounts of joy. But the one who survives trauma carries a certain amount of death into even the best of times.

“If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.”

— Richard Rohr, Christian mystic

Our survivor brains have adapted to deal with the worst. This presents us with a dilemma. We can either endure what has happened by continuing to protect and defend ourselves against an unknowable future, or we can choose to transform our pain and emerge as a new and improved version of ourselves.

Richard Rohr, the Christian mystic, tells us, "If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it." There is no doubt that he is right. My decades of work with wounded people affirms this truth. For example, without exception, every boy who was referred to me as a sexual perpetrator had been molested repeatedly as a younger child. Their sexual assaults replicated the young offender's own exploitation.

Power exerted over them created a survival response of seeking control by victimizing weaker children. This pattern or trait is not limited to any specific trauma. If left unattended, the suffering experienced and survived will later influence our behavior in ways that often inflict even greater anguish to others.

All of the negativity we witness has roots in piles and piles of disappointments, unrealized dreams and hopes, tragic losses, betrayals, and all forms of woundedness. Bitterness and blaming is heaped on the shoulders of innocent bystanders, our friends, family and children of the next generation. But each of us has the power to stop transmitting our pain by transforming it.

We can refuse the tendency of our ego to hurt others by offering the wounds we have received and our survival of them as rays of hope for all those who suffer similar experiences.

We can offer hands of healing instead of building protective walls. We will in turn find ourselves transformed and born anew.

Life can be wonderful when we make it so.