In the wake of pandemic,
In the midst of loss,
And war,
And war again,
And heartbreak,
Then more illness,
And let us not forget all the
Daily indignities that mark each day we get closer to
Death—
My God, is it even worth it to keep trying?
My God, can’t we just be?
In the face of the world’s pain
And in the vortex of our own,
It is no wonder that we may ask these questions.
But if historians are to be believed,
Our ancestors have given their own answers to these questions before.
Some of them, thankfully, wrote their answers.
More of them, thankfully, lived the answers.
I've been rewatching the modern classic show The Good Place on Netflix. The show, which aired from 2016-2020, centers on the afterlife and moral philosophy, and it is one of the funniest and most earnest, heartwarming shows I've ever seen.
In an episode about halfway through, our human main characters learn that time doesn't move in a linear path. It loops, doubles back, and ends up looking like, in cursive English, the name "Jeremy Bearimy".
According to the linear timeline, the three year anniversary of my mom's passing is quickly approaching.
"How has it already been three years?" I ask myself, sometimes.
"How has it only been three years?" I ask, other times.
Grief, like time, is non-linear. Yes, there are the famous five stages of grief, but anyone who has lived through a massive loss knows that the stages aren't time-based. They're more like regions on a map, and sometimes you just have to go through the region of Anger or Bargaining to get where you're going, even if you usually spend most of your time in Depression, or Denial, or Acceptance.
And, boy. That famed region of Acceptance seemed mythical for the first two years. I lived in the territories of Denial, Anger, and Depression, and honestly didn't think I'd ever see Acceptance.
Nor did I think that Acceptance would be as interesting a place as it is. Isn't that funny? I spent so much time fighting and working to be stable, without any idea that it would actually be worth it! I viewed Acceptance as a serene, pastel museum-quality peace, not as a kaleidoscope of living, rich jewel-toned variations of peace, joy, and love (as well as anger, sadness, and a host of other emotions).
It makes me think of the writer Ursula K. LeGuin's short moral philosophy narrative, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas". In it, she writes,
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.”
She's right. So let this amateur writer encourage you to take deep delight in the joys of your life. Whether it's appreciating art, taking walks in the beauty of nature, meditating or praying, or spending quiet moments with your loved ones, sink yourself deeply into the moments when life is still and you can simply be. Yes, pain and evil are at our door. But here? Spending time with you in this precious moment we have together?
What else could we call it but Paradise?
"After the long weeks
when the heat curled the leaves
and the air thirsted, comes
a morning after rain, cool
and bright. The leaves uncurl,
the pastures begin again
to grow, the animals and the birds
rejoice. If tonight the world ends,
we’ll have had this day."
- Wendell Berry, "XVII"
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