Over the last few months, I have been the regular recipient of pre-read issues of the New York Times, as I may have mentioned. Like most former New Yorkers, I used to read the newspaper "religiously", and I was interested to see how I might respond now, after so many years away. I don't know whether it is this particular time frame or too much time having passed, but I have found the experience almost completely overwhelming.
In a sense, scanning the headlines has the same impact on me as hearing similar soundbites on radio or television news: my reactions range from complete mystification to active horror. With the exception of some articles about the arts, food, culture, and design, everything seems steeped in hatred, conflict, fear, competition, thoughtless waste, and distrust, sensations that feel more foreign to me with every passing day. I feel like I am no longer reading about planet earth, but some other "place". Have I changed, or has the world changed?
I keep grappling with how we were taught to love our "enemies". Yet when an entire world seems to operate in ways that are unbearably painful, this seems like an impossibility. Or worse, to open the door to hypocrisy. Even "loving the people but hating what they do" is too dualistic and too much of a high wire act for me. And fighting everything is out of the question.
All I seem to be able to do today is remind myself that as increased levels of love enter the world, many people will be as mystified and horrified as I am now. Love may not compute with them, or will be as much of a struggle for them as our current paradigm has been for some of the rest of us. All I seem to be able to do today is accept that humanity is on quite a complex journey, and it's much bigger than I am, and I cannot control anyone but myself.
I'm going to give it a few more weeks. If by Thanksgiving I am not enjoying this newspaper reading (or really, "perusal"!), then I guess I will thank the donor but turn down future copies. What will I do today in love? Get together with dear friends, walk a dog, give away some homemade cookies, and appreciate my view of "my" great lake. That's all I can do. That is, literally, all that I can bear.
