Beyond the Circumstances

About the time you solve one set of prob­lems, another set arises that are even more com­plex. The game of life is never sta­tic. Cir­cum­stances change con­stantly. Usu­ally the changes are sub­tle and pre­dictable, but they can be rad­i­cal and with­out warn­ing too. Worry does noth­ing to pre­vent or con­trol the shifts, and it cer­tainly does noth­ing after a change occurs. As an intel­li­gent option, worry is out. Accep­tance is prefer­able, but it arrives slowly. The time between can be exhaust­ing or exhil­a­rat­ing — depend­ing on your frame of mind.
Infor­ma­tion is tricky. Some­times the more you know, the more con­fi­dent you become. Some­times just the oppo­site hap­pens — the more you know the worse it seems. Han­dling change has more to do with faith than with details. Analy­sis of a dis­as­ter does not change the dis­as­ter. Those suf­fer­ing are not con­soled by end­less broad­casts of their mis­eries. Com­pas­sion that actu­ally helps the indi­vid­u­als involved is what is needed most. The rest is just cul­tural noise about the changes. We obsess on the fate of oth­ers as a form of magic think­ing — to pre­vent it from hap­pen­ing to us too. This is noth­ing more than whistling in the dark.
Peo­ple lose their jobs right here in this town. They are neigh­bors, rel­a­tives, and friends. Some of them get sick. Some of them have fam­ily crises. None of them live in social vac­u­ums or in fixed states of good health. Some heal. Oth­ers pros­per well beyond the com­mon stan­dards. God indeed “sends the rain on the just and the unjust” with­out dis­tinc­tion. Inequities abound, but so do the bless­ings we all take for granted. For all of our efforts to keep the scales bal­anced, some­thing else seems to be going on with a greater pur­pose.
Cre­ativ­ity comes from a lit­tle chaos mixed with a healthy dose of the impos­si­ble. Tran­scen­dence appears as an option after all of the other options have been exhausted. We won­der why we did not reach for that pos­si­bil­ity first. It has so much to offer and can be applied to any sit­u­a­tion. Maybe the cir­cum­stances change to moti­vate our imag­i­na­tion. With­out a new chal­lenge here or there, life could become rather tedious. Maybe the ever-changing life scene pushes us toward some­thing greater, that we miss while we are seek­ing mere equi­lib­rium. It would pay to lift our eyes a little.