I decided to wait a couple days before writing any more. I’ve been depressed, and it’s shown in my poetry. Who really wants to read “Happy new year! We’re all going to die!”  It may eventually be true, but it isn’t particularly helpful to dwell on it. And if I’m honest, death isn’t the real problem anyway. The difficulty is in how to live life fully, and how to keep facing all of life’s disappointments and troubles without becoming disillusioned, angry and generally grumpy. I interact with people who deal with these challenges on a visceral level whenever I ride the bus or walk very far downtown. Seattle’s center is wonderful.  Nevertheless, it is a collection area for human beings who’ve suffered things I can only imagine, and been filled with so much hurt that there’s no room left in them for joy. Or at least this is the way it seems. 

Yesterday we went to see The Hobbit. I read the book once when I was a kid. I read the Lord of the Rings trilogy seven times. The Hobbit just didn’t grab my imagination to the same degree. Nevertheless, I found myself tearing up as the “good guys” triumphed over such obvious evil in the movie. It wasn’t fully logical, getting misty over an Orc beheading, so my own emotions caught my attention. 

Today we saw “The Imitation Game.”  It was so tragic on so many different levels. I weep for Alan Turing. There’s so much in the world that’s heart-breaking and broken and even what you might call “evil,” although the last word makes me squeamish. I think we’re too ready as a society to ascribe that word to individuals when in the vast majority of cases the fact is that when people are hurt, they hurt other people. I would argue that most atrocities (and atrocities they remain) are products of brokenness and admittedly poor to horrible decision making. 

This makes the world a much more complicated place than I originally thought.  I was taught that everything is black and white, concrete and absolute, and that people who believe otherwise have been lured by “the world” into a system that allows grey areas to exist. The truth as I see it is that we live in the world, with birth defects, human trafficking, homelessness, PTSD, mental illnesses, physical illnesses, loneliness, poverty, climate change, racism, pollution, and a host of other horrifying realities. All of these are enmeshed within systems that deal only partially with the causes and effects of each of these things. Sometimes we even live inside systems that nurture some injustice or another in the name of economic progress or blind tradition.  The suffering seems endless, and the grey areas irrefutable. 

I have watched my own mother battle daily pain for my entire life. I’ve watched my father, emotionally unequipped by his upbringing, as he’s worked three jobs and kept a stiff upper lip the entire time, never confiding in a friend or leaning on anyone else for anything including encouragement. Of course I’m not angry with them for how they’ve emotionally harmed me along the way (or at least not fundamentally so), but I’m certainly outraged at disease, and broken social systems and pain and loneliness and despair. I’m entirely pissed off that people can be on earth for over 70 years without ever really living.  So when I watch some kick-ass elf chick kill an Orc, something that is so obviously ugly and deeply wrong, I wish so fervently that I could do the same thing. I want to whip out my glowing elf blade with runes enscribed on it and slice that hideous creature’s head off. 

I know. Kind of gruesome, especially for someone who loves baby bunnies and feels bad for buildings when they’re neglected. But of course, it’s because I love so much that I feel this way. I want to protect those I love with every ounce of strength in me. Instead, I have to accept the fact of the survival of the fittest, the carnivorous circle of life and the human incursion into nature, with all its economic and humanitarian complexities. If someone I love gets sick I want to bomb the hell out of their disease, but I can’t. If someone of color is treated unjustly in the courts, all I can do is sit in town square holding a sign. I’m relatively helpless on a dangerous and unpredictable planet. Just once I’d like to have something in front of me obviously in need of extermination, and have the ability to beat the fucking hell out of it. It would be clear. I want to be an elf warrior, damn it, but I can’t. I have to watch, accept, understand, let go. 

I don’t know where exactly God is in this equation. Maybe he’s in our love for each other. Maybe Jesus is wailing with us in our loss and confusion and pain, but I find myself empathizing with Jesus’ disciples, who were really expecting him to blow the imperialist Romans to hell so justice and peace could reign on earth. I know the answer is much more complex than that. For one thing, there’s plenty of injustice without the ancient Romans.  I “get” Jesus sacrifice for all people of all time so everyone can see God’s love. I just can’t seem to separate myself from the here and now, and right here and now God feels far away and uninvolved. So I guess this is an invitation to a power infinitely greater than myself who seems historically to take a mysterious interest in the human race. I’m inviting you, God.  Show up.