Great words from Justin...
In a culture of cynicism wrapped within a society of learned helplessness, the greatest enemy that we face as the hands and arms of progress... is ourselves.
It is inevitable that when our eyes first rest upon the shadow created by the looming conflicts and issues in the world that we will sit on our hands, breathless with anxiety. Where does one man or woman begin when the whole world has gone mad?
And as that anxiety flows through us like a toxin which immobilizes the heart and constricts the soul, it perpetuates that helplessness we feel in the sad, sagging faces of the masses who appear broken with the same affliction.
When the 500 richest people in the planet control more than the bottom three billion (over half of the planet),when the illusion of democracy falters and fails as the corporate interests which govern diplomacy and death deal out our bounded politicians who build wars and destroy our social programs. We live our lives in constant fear, from pay check to pay check, worrying about layoffs, health care, violence in our communities, unclean water and unfit food, wondering what kind of future our children will be living in once we are gone.
But the real question that must be asked is not where to begin, but how do we understand this climate of inaction, callousness, and blatant denial and dereliction of our responsibility as citizens.
When did we learn that nothing we do in the world is worth a damn?
The private life of pleasure and ignorance is the resulting band-aid for the soul. We never have enough as we begin to fill the void with what our culture of cynicism tells us to. Fill it with frivolous things, fill it with the comfort of conformity, and when the monster of meaninglessness craves it- feed it more more more more more.
The true cure for the soul is social involvement- it challenges us to step out side of ourselves and into the public sphere of things. We feel better with ourselves when we know our time has value, where the measure of our actions is something tangible; our individual lives become important to the well being of the entire tribe.It is the renaissance of the weakened soul.
But we must remember that in the beginning, these waters are unexplored. That for those beginning the journey of civic engagement we are captains who have never learned to navigate. It is a process of trial and error, of learning what works and what does not work. It is also an unraveling of ourselves and condemning the walls that have been consciously or subconsciously been building up around us.
Without previous experience we may feel alone, isolated, and fearful at the thought of beginning the tasks, whatever they may be, which create changes in the lives of others and in ourselves. This fear makes us uncertain of our abilities, makes our voice falter, and expose us to vulnerabilities we never knew that we had.
But there are ways to avoid burning out. There are ways to learn through our failures, grow from our mistakes, and take these experiences and revere them as the glorious failures necessary to guide us along the road of bettering ourselves and giving us the vital insight needed to effectively create changes. In the words of Thomas Merton, “Souls are like athletes that crave opponents worthy of them if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the full use of their powers.”
We may not begin this road as scholars. We may not begin this road knowing everything about the issues. We may not begin this road with the skills we feel necessary to tackle what our convictions incessantly drive us to stand up for. But the most important thing to remember in the industry of changing the world, is that there is no winning or losing- there is only doing... which requires that first great step into the unknown world within us, the only true fear of mankind.
What we are doing in St Cloud is examining the frontier of possibilities that spread open before us like the limitless planes of our human potential. And though at times confusion and anxiety may get the better of us, when the road becomes unclear and we put our purpose to the great inquisition of the heart, we must rely on each other and our allies in the cause of progress- we must hold true to the ideals in which we stand. And dance.
-Justin
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I?”
-Rabbi Hillel
