Healing the Division

On Friday night, Vice President elect Mike Pence attended the play Hamilton. As he entered the theater, he was both cheered and booed.  Can you feel the division in this country that showed up in that theater?

Also, at the end of the play, on the stage with the entire cast, actor Brandon Victor Dixon acknowledged that Mr. Pence was in the audience, thanked him for attending and added, “We hope you will hear us out. We, sir, are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights.  We truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us.”

Can you relate to the fear in what he said, the fear that is showing up all over the world?  How can we heal this division?  How can we respond to everything that is unfolding through our hearts rather than our fear?

There is a powerful quote by Eckhart Tolle that speaks directly to this:  “Always say ‘yes’ to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is? What could be more insane than to oppose Life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say ‘yes’ to Life — and see how Life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.”

Your mind may be saying this is impossible. But if you listen carefully, you will realize that your heart knows the truth of Eckhart’s wisdom – that what we resist and fight we empower. Saying “yes” means not being seduced by your fear, your judgment, and the idea that there is a ‘them’ and there is an ‘us’. It means not arguing with what is so you can respond to it in the most helpful way.

To discover how to respond rather than react to what is happening in our world right now; and to foster the knowing that we are all in this together – each person a thread in the tapestry of Life (no matter what their political beliefs are) – it is important to know that Life knows what it is doing. Take a look around the space where you are reading this and recognize that everything you see, whether it is a plant, a person, a rug or a computer is all made out of atoms that were once a part of our star. Eckhart truly understands that whatever created you out of stardust knows what it is doing. And the only sane response to chaos, fear, and the huge division that is happening is to be present for and with it. He uses the word ‘surrender,’ which to the ego may sound like defeat. A more skillful word may be ‘open.’ In other words, we need to stay open and responsive to what Life is offering, especially if we don’t like it.

In making the shift from reaction to response, it is also helpful to hear what Neal Degrasse Tyson, the much-respected astrophysicist, pointed out in his series Cosmos. “If you condense all the time our planet has been here into one 24-hour period, human beings would not show up until the last four seconds of December 31^st!”

You and I are a part of an intelligent process that is been unfolding for billions of years on this planet and Life has made many shifts in the process of moving from molten gas and dust into the amazing creativity that we see everywhere on our planet. And every time Life had another major shift, there was always chaos as the old way was dying and the new was being born.

We are in such a time. And it is messy.  How can you make a difference?  Realize that the healing that is happening on our planet is happening inside of you.  You are being invited to move beyond ‘them and us’.  You are being invited to move beyond the fear-based mind that has an adversarial mentality.  And most importantly, you are being invited to see that everything you see ‘out there’ is also inside of you.  If you can heal the war inside of you, you become a healing presence in the world. Or, as Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist said, “The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.”

So when you see a politician on the television that you don’t agree with, or are in rush-hour traffic, or having difficulty with a friend, or feel like you have been waiting forever at the doctor’s office, ask, “How can I respond to this rather than react, so I can become a part of the healing that is happening on our planet?”