This is the story of your life – We sense it when we sit alone, something is not right with life. There is a truth to be known but we cannot put our finger on it. There is a veiled reality beckoning us, just beyond our perception.
The histories of the peoples of the world have been good and bad. In the final analyses though it is mostly about human endeavours succumbing to the burden of living.
It is useful to look at life as a hierarchy and multiplicity of interdependent stories. We have our own story. We have other people in our story and as we are present in the stories of others.
In western culture people are facing unprecedented existential challenges. Notwithstanding our current prosperity, measured by the extent of our possessions, mental and physical chronic illness abounds among adults and children alike. Stress, irritation, depression and loneliness are everywhere to be seen. We live in the midst of a fog of free-floating anxiety. The food and water we consume, the space we move through and the air we breathe are contaminated with toxins.
The ratio of working poor in our societies is increasing daily. People feel displaced. We feel threatened by global warming doomsday scenarios and looming World War III prospects. We no longer have the vision or energy to aspire to a better future. We are resigned to the slavery that political and corporate dogma is offering us via the medium of technological progress and through insidious ideological perversions.
A disenfranchised citizen might say that we are living in a weird system of democratically elected tyranny in which both personal liberties and national sovereignty are being surrendered to supranational organisations and corporate elites whose loyalty lies exclusively with power and greed. Politicians do really need to step up and start paying attention.
A religious zealot might say that we stand to be punished by a righteous god. I believe that God does not mete out punishments but justly allows us to suffer the consequences of our actions.
An atheist may hold the belief that our emotions, thoughts and very being are just the result of chemical reactions in our bodies. Creation exists in a hierarchy of manifestations. We should not set our sights too low just because we cannot immediately see what lies beyond our limitations.
And yet we survive. We survive because the Goodness that underlies and permeates creation, sustains us. As we are an expression of the Goodness of God, we are never alone. Ordinary people that constitute, say, 99% of western populations, are the major contributors of goodness. This goodness manifests itself as we struggle to overcome all the torments and anxieties in our lives. We sacrifice something that is of value to us so that some benefit may come to others. This happens in families, with friends and on a larger scale in communities and nations.
In my opinion our predicament is more nuanced than just declaring people, situations or events, all good or all bad. The stuff of life is complex with multiple causes and results. Context and history are important. Having said all this, if we are to be of any use we need to first sort ourselves out.
We all have our personal story in which we are the protagonists. This gives us power. This includes the power to be ignorant, to be shallow, to cultivate distractions and disruption and to offer ourselves into slavery. If we feel imprisoned by our current state of affairs, we should look back at our lives with honesty and see that it was us, and nobody else, who built the edifice of our past, brick by brick.
In reality our past is what it is. It has brought us to this present moment and made us who we are today. In a very fundamental way it could not have been any different. Our pasts are not to be regretted but to be understood with empathy for our previous selves. We need to learn the valuable lessons that our personal and collective histories teach us, bearing in mind that the future is created in the present moment.
So, hold your head up high and shoulders back. Become the heroine or hero of your own story. We are born with talents and have a reason to exist. Nothing will give you more satisfaction and confidence as fully developing your talents and properly fulfilling your responsibilities.
“Become the heroine or hero of your own story”
We have severely damaged creation as well as ourselves. We shall repent and put this right. Human beings are not the cancer of the planet. There are not too many of us and we may have children.
Think through meaningful and purposeful goals for your life. Life is about doing good and being good, expressing your highest wisdom and compassion at every turn and with every choice. There is no such thing as a neutral event. You are either expressing your divine nature to the best of your ability or contributing to the chaos of evil. Seek, and abide by, truth in all its forms.
Living in a society that lacks values, morals and tradition, that ignores history, that lacks the cohesion and love that families bring and that encourages ignorance of reality, is a guidebook to hell. Is this what we want?
We are beholden to God’s higher moral order. This moral order draws us unto itself. All we need to do is give it our attention.
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This article was published in the Times of Malta on the 9th December 2023 and on the 30th December 2023