Brother Lawrence

The search for a path through life

Photo: Shelf fungus, Tallman State Park

A continuation of Notes from Dec. 4.

It’s tempting to succumb to desperation in these times. The times are, according to our own statements to ourselves, desperate indeed.

And yet every time has always looked desperate to those who inhabit it. The Jews under the yoke of the Romans at the time of Jesus felt things were desperate… and I suppose they were. I'm sure that the Babylonians felt things were desperate what with all the wars they fought; and who knows what cavemen thought, aside from the fact, almost certainly, that, surrounded by wild creatures that wanted to eat them, things were desperate.

We have a habitual proclivity for desperation. Yet this is more of an attitude we have acquired, not so much a truth about the world. One might say that things are desperate, because we think they are desperate; and then confirmation bias sets in. Things are desperate because everyone says they are desperate; and then we can justify desperate measures.

Desperation induces a kind of paranoia that breeds hatred and begins wars. There are too many examples like that around us at this very moment to count; and yet, paradoxically, in the midst of our grousing about it (I am as outraged and indignant as anyone), our weeping and gnashing of teeth, it’s our duty to turn the ship into the wind, to remain steadfast in the face of inner and outer threats, and to come back within ourselves to the love of God, that creates us and fills us.