By John Robbins on September 21, 2011
We can, as a society, be astoundingly cruel to people who are obese. They might be creative, caring and hopeful people, but we don’t see that. Far too often, we see only their weight.
What does it say about us that we act as though you can take the measure of a person by the size bathing suit they wear?
Maybe this partially explains why obese people are flocking to a restaurant outside Phoenix, Arizona, whose name, and I am not making this up, is the Heart Attack Grill. The restaurant, which seats 100, is often packed. It offers what owner Jon Basso calls, “an environment of acceptance to overweight customers who are typically demonized by society.”
But at this restaurant, it’s a little more than acceptance. The Heart Attack Grill literally celebrates obesity. Customers who are over 350 pounds eat for free. A scale is strategically placed at the center of the restaurant, so other diners can watch the weigh-ins. When customers exceed 350 pounds, says the restaurant’s owner, “Everybody applauds and cheers for them. A big smile comes over their face, and for once they are finally accepted. They are not picked on here.”
It’s all made to seem sexy, too. Waitresses, all of them young and slender, are dressed as scantily clad nurses, wearing high heels, thigh-high stockings, and skimpy outfits revealing lots of cleavage.
It sounds like fun.
Except when it isn’t.
Several months ago, the 575-pound spokesman for the Heart Attack Grill, a 29-year-old man named Blair River, died. It wasn’t a heart attack, it was pneumonia. He had been the public face of the restaurant and the star of its advertising. He was also the single father for a five-year-old girl.
At nearly 600 pounds. Blair River ate all his meals free at the restaurant.
Heart Attack Grill owner Jon Basso did not deny the link between the young man’s excessive weight and his tragically premature death. “I hired him to promote my food,” said Basso, “[but his] life was cut short because he carried extra weight.” Ironically, the restaurant’s motto is “Food Worth Dying For.”
Of course, no one is forcing anyone to eat at the Heart Attack Grill or to stuff themselves full of unhealthy food. It’s a free country, in theory anyway, and we’re free to eat ourselves to death if we want to do so.
Some would say that the Heart Attack Grill steps over a line, to the point of enabling dangerous food addictions. There is certainly nothing remotely resembling healthy on the menu. Customers can purchase cigarettes, but only the non-filtered type. On the wall are prominent displays advertising menu items such as “Quadruple Bypass Burgers” that carry 8,000 calories, and “Flatliner Fries” that are deep-fried in pure lard. Perhaps joking, owner Basso says, “We’re in the front lines of the battle against anorexia.”
But Blair River’s death is no joke. And it would be a mistake to make light of the medical consequences of obesity. The Centers for Disease Control tells us that obese people have a substantially higher risk not only for heart attacks, but also for diabetes, most cancers, and many other types of cardiovascular disease.
Heart Attack Grill owner Basso doesn’t plan any changes on account of the young man’s death. Scantily-clad waitresses will still regularly exhort customers to eat all they can. He’s making money, and thinks the restaurant is great fun.
But is it funny that we have become the most obese society in the history of the world? Two-thirds of the residents of the United States are now either overweight or obese. So many children are developing the most common type of diabetes that medical authorities have had to change the name of the disease. What was formerly called “adult-onset diabetes” is now called “type 2 diabetes.” It accounts for 90 percent of the diabetes in the country, and the incidence in children is skyrocketing.
It’s easy to point our fingers and pass judgment. We can blame fast food companies that aggressively market unhealthy foods to children, we can blame people who overeat for their lack of will power, and we can blame parents for feeding their kids poorly. We can blame harmful ingredients such as trans-fats and high-fructose corn syrup, and we can blame the pressures of modern life that turn people into addicts of one kind or another.
We can play the blame game ad infinitum, but who does that help? Does it help those with weight problems that leave them vulnerable to disease and prone to feelings of shame?
What if we were instead to learn from those people who have taken the arduous, difficult, and ultimately joyful journey from obesity to health?
I have had the wonderfully good fortune recently to become friends with a young woman named Natala Constantine and her husband Matt. They’ve been married for seven-and-a-half years. At their wedding, Natala was morbidly obese.
She knew something about the abuse endured by obese people in our society. By then, she had lost track of the number of times she had been humiliated in public, called ugly names by strangers, and been physically hurt by people who felt entitled to treat her as less than human because of her weight.
People constantly told Natala she was lucky Matt had fallen in love with her, and that he must be amazing to be able to look past her weight.
A week after the wedding, she was diagnosed with severe diabetes. Her blood had become so acidic that her organs were shutting down, and doctors seriously doubted whether she would survive. She was 25-years-old.
Five years later, Natala was taking up to 13 different medications and as much as 200 units of insulin a day. She ate what many people would call a healthy diet — lots of animal protein, and almost no carbohydrates. She had been told that a diet high in animal protein was the only way she could control her diabetes, but it wasn’t working. She was working out at a gym for two to three hours a day, but at 5’2? tall, she weighed close to 400 pounds.
When Natala developed an infection in her right calf, doctors told her that part of her lower right leg might need to be amputated. But then a friend, who Natala described to me as “a vegan and into yoga,” suggested that she consider a natural approach to her diabetes, and that she start to think of food as medicine. “I wanted to smash her,” Natala admits. “How dare she suggest something so simple! Didn’t she know that I had been to the best doctors, that I was on the best diet, that I was working out?”
But Natala did take her friend’s advice to heart, and decided to go on what she calls a “100-percent healthy plant-strong diet.”
“For the first three weeks,” she says, “I felt as though I was ridding myself of much more than animal products. Food had a hold on me that I could not even conceptualize prior to those three weeks. I would sit in my car and cry outside of sub shops, just wanting a tuna melt.”
It was very rough, but Natala stayed with it and the results were nothing short of miraculous. In 30 days, she was off all insulin.
The physicians she was seeing for her diabetes took a look at her numbers, were amazed, and wanted to know how she did it. “I told them I had adopted a completely plant-based diet. They didn’t seem surprised at all, and told me that plant-based diets were helping to reverse diabetes. When I asked why they had not suggested it, they told me because it isn’t practical.”
Aghast, she asked her doctor, “Do you think it’s practical to be 30 years old and lose a leg?”
She walked out of that doctor’s office and never went back. “Everything changed from that moment,” she recalls. “I slowly decreased all the other diabetes medicines I was on. I lowered my blood cholesterol without drugs. I lowered my blood pressure without drugs. I corrected my hormonal problems without drugs. Many diabetics go blind, but I reversed the nerve damage in my eyes. And that infection in my leg? It completely healed. The arthritis in my feet? It went away.”
Today, Natala Constantine has lost almost 200 pounds, is medicine-free, and continues to make great strides toward her ideal weight. Her diabetes is in complete remission. I’ve met her and I can attest that she is one of the happiest and most radiant people you could hope to meet. A concert violinist, she exudes joy.
And her husband, Matt? While Natala was dealing with diabetes, he was not only obese but also suffered from severe food allergies. Eating a few tomatoes would send him to the emergency room. His food allergies dominated his life. And now? His improvement, on a 100-percent healthy plant-strong diet, is almost as miraculous as his wife’s. A concert pianist, he has lost 90 pounds, is now a healthy weight, and his food allergies are entirely behind him.
It’s quite a world we live in it, isn’t it? On the one hand, we have the Heart Attack Grill, whose 570-pound spokesman died at the age of 29. On the other, we have people like Natala and Matt Constantine, who have taken a different path.
We live in a society that tends to cruelly stigmatize the obese. The Heart Attack Grill represents one form of response. It can feel empowering to turn shame into defiance. When society points its finger at you, blaming you and denying its own illness, there is a natural urge to send a message back to society with your middle finger.
But is there a healthier alternative? What about turning shame into a commitment to greater wellbeing and happiness? What about refusing to internalize society’s negative messages, and instead building a healthy life of joy, confidence, and beauty?
Cutting back on heavily sweetened beverages like sodas and juice-like drinks is a good place to start. Eating less processed foods and more whole foods is another good step. Getting exercise helps a lot. And the more of your nutrients you can get from plant sources, the better.
Eat a healthy plant-strong diet, and your body will thank you for the rest of your life.
For more tools, resources and inspiration, visit http://www.johnrobbins.info/.
This article was originally published at HuffingtonPost.com.
Photo credit: Trina Alexander
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By John Robbins on June 14, 2011
The food police may find this hard to take, but chocolate has gotten a bad rap. People say it causes acne, that you should eat carob instead, that it’s junk food. But these accusations are not only undeserved and inaccurate, they falsely incriminate a delicious food that turns out to have profoundly important healing powers.
There is in fact a growing body of credible scientific evidence that chocolate contains a host of heart-healthy and mood-enhancing phytochemicals, with benefits to both body and mind.
For one, chocolate is a plentiful source of antioxidants. These are substances that reduce the ongoing cellular and arterial damage caused by oxidative reactions.
You may have heard of a type of antioxidants called polyphenols. These are protective chemicals found in plant foods such as red wine and green tea. Chocolate, it turns out, is particularly rich in polyphenols. According to researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, the same antioxidant properties found in red wine that protect against heart disease are also found in comparable quantities in chocolate.
How does chocolate help to prevent heart disease? The oxidation of LDL cholesterol is considered a major factor in the promotion of coronary disease. When this waxy substance oxidizes, it tends to stick to artery walls, increasing the risk of a heart attack or stroke. But chocolate to the rescue! The polyphenols in chocolate inhibit oxidation of LDL cholesterol.
And there’s more. One of the causes of atherosclerosis is blood platelets clumping together, a process called aggregation. The polyphenols in chocolate inhibit this clumping, reducing the risks of atherosclerosis.
High blood pressure is a well known risk factor for heart disease. It is also one of the most common causes of kidney failure, and a significant contributor to many kinds of dementia and cognitive impairment. Studies have shown that consuming a small bar of dark chocolate daily can reduce blood pressure in people with mild hypertension.
Why are people with risk factors for heart disease sometimes told to take a baby aspirin every day? The reason is that aspirin thins the blood and reduces the likelihood of clots forming (clots play a key role in many heart attacks and strokes). Research performed at the department of nutrition at the University of California, Davis, found that chocolate thins the blood and performs the same anti-clotting activity as aspirin. “Our work supports the concept that the chronic consumption of cocoa may be associated with improved cardiovascular health,” said UC Davis researcher Carl Keen.
How much chocolate would you have to eat to obtain these benefits? Less than you might think. According to a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, adding only half an ounce of dark chocolate to an average American diet is enough to increase total antioxidant capacity 4 percent, and lessen oxidation of LDL cholesterol.
Why, then, has chocolate gotten such a bum reputation? It’s the ingredients we add to it. Nearly all of the calories in a typical chocolate bar are sugar and fat.
As far as fats go, it’s the added fats that are the difficulty, not the natural fat (called cocoa butter) found in chocolate. Cocoa butter is high in saturated fat, so many people assume that it’s not good for your cardiovascular system. But most of the saturated fat content in cocoa butter is stearic acid, which numerous studies have shown does not raise blood cholesterol levels. In the human body, it acts much like the monounsaturated fat in olive oil.
Milk chocolate, on the other hand, contains added butterfat which can raise blood cholesterol levels. And it has less antioxidants and other beneficial phytochemicals than dark chocolate.
Does chocolate contribute to acne? Milk chocolate has been shown to do so, but I’ve never heard of any evidence incriminating dark chocolate.
Dark chocolate is also healthier because it has less added sugar. I’m sure you don’t need another lecture on the dangers of excess sugar consumption. But if you want to become obese and dramatically raise your odds of developing diabetes, heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, foods high in sugar (including high fructose corn syrup) are just the ticket.
Are chocolate’s benefits limited to the health of the body? Hardly. Chocolate has long been renown for its remarkable effects on human mood. We are now beginning to understand why.
Chocolate is the richest known source of a little-known substance called theobromine, a close chemical relative of caffeine. Theobromine, like caffeine, and also like the asthma drug theophylline, belong to the chemical group known as xanthine alkaloids. Chocolate products contain small amounts of caffeine, but not nearly enough to explain the attractions, fascinations, addictions, and effects of chocolate. The mood enhancement produced by chocolate may be primarily due to theobromine.
Chocolate also contains other substances with mood elevating effects. One is phenethylamine, which triggers the release of pleasurable endorphins and potentates the action of dopamine, a neurochemical associated with sexual arousal and pleasure. Phenethylamine is released in the brain when people become infatuated or fall in love.
Another substance found in chocolate is anandamide (from the Sanskrit word “ananda,” which means peaceful bliss). A fatty substance that is naturally produced in the brain, anandamide has been isolated from chocolate by pharmacologists at the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego. It binds to the same receptor sites in the brain as cannabinoids — the psychoactive constituents in marijuana — and produces feelings of elation and exhilaration. (If this becomes more widely known, will they make chocolate illegal?)
If that weren’t enough, chocolate also boosts brain levels of serotonin. Women typically have lower serotonin levels during PMS and menstruation, which may be one reason women typically experience stronger cravings for chocolate at these times in their cycles. People suffering from depression so characteristically have lower serotonin levels that an entire class of anti-depressive medications called serotonin uptake inhibitors (including Prozac, Paxil, and Zooloft) have been developed that raise brain levels of serotonin.
Since I am known as an advocate of healthy eating, I’m often asked about my food indulgences. One of my favorite desserts is a piece of dark organic chocolate, along with a glass of a fine red wine.
I do have a policy, though, to eat only organic and/or fair trade chocolate. This is because of what I have learned about child slavery in the cocoa trade.
May your life be full of healthy pleasures.
Originally published at HuffingtonPost.com
Photo credit: anitasarkeesian
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By John Robbins on February 3, 2011
These days, many of us tend to think that human nature is inherently competitive and destructive. We hear about “selfish genes,” as if our genetic makeup predetermines that we will be egotistic people and that we will fight with one another. We’re told that our species contains a built-in “killer instinct,” that we are descended from apes who needed to be brutal and ferociously aggressive to survive the hostile conditions of prehistoric times. According to such notions, the natural world is an unrelenting battle for survival, and it is mere wishful thinking to believe that people can live in peace with one another and with their environment for any significant length of time. “War,” said Dick Cheney, seeking to justify the invasion of Iraq, “is the natural state of man.”
Cheney and others who think like him believe that the human condition is inherently and inexorably competitive, and that all of human experience is an expression of the Darwinian principle of “survival of the fittest.” If they are correct, then given the existence of nuclear weapons, our species is almost certainly doomed. But Charles Darwin himself would not agree. In fact, in “The Descent of Man,” Darwin mentioned the survival of the fittest only twice, and one of those times was to apologize for using what he had come to feel was an unfortunate and misleading phrase. By contrast, he wrote 95 times about love. In his later writings, Darwin repeatedly stressed that the “survival of the fittest” model of natural selection dropped away in importance at the level of human evolution and was replaced by moral sensitivity, education and cooperation.
It’s true that chimpanzees, whose genetics are very similar to our own, have quite a propensity for deceit, violence, theft, infanticide and even cannibalism. But it’s equally true that among chimps, the toughest rivals will reconcile after a fight, stretching out their hands to each other, smiling, kissing and hugging. And besides, there is another primate who is as genetically similar to us as the chimpanzee – the bonobo, an ape species native to the Congo. If, instead of studying chimps for clues to the origins of human behavior, we had been studying bonobos, we would have come to very different conclusions. Instead of the killer-ape model, we would have had the lover-ape model, for these primates show a phenomenal sensitivity to the well-being of others.
“Primatologists,” writes author Marc Barasch in his book, “Field Notes on the Compassionate Life,” “are finding in the bonobos evidence that it is not tooth-and-nail competition, but conciliation, cuddling and cooperation that may be the central organizing principle of human evolution.” One of the world’s leading experts on primate behavior, Frans de Waal, calls it “survival of the kindest.”
What kind of creature, then, are we? There are those who believe human beings are fundamentally selfish, and there are those who believe we are essentially kindly creatures who need only love to flourish; but I stand in neither camp, or maybe I should say I stand in both camps. It appears to me that we have nearly infinite potential in both directions. Part ego and part divinely inspired, we have both the potential to compete and the potential to cooperate. There are in each of us forces that can produce a Bernard Madoff, and also those that can produce a Martin Luther King.
Depending on what we choose to affirm and cultivate within ourselves and our children, we can collectively turn this planet into a hell or a heaven. Whether we like it or not, and whether we accept it or not, our choices make an enormous difference.
In these deeply uncertain times, I believe that the effort to create a web of caring, support, authenticity and trust among your friends and family members, and in your larger community, may be among the most important acts you can undertake. With the economy and the biosphere deteriorating and potentially collapsing, nothing may be more imperative than overcoming the isolation and disconnectedness that so often pervades contemporary life.
Down through history there have been sages and philosophers who have spoken of the fundamental unity underlying the human condition. They have taught that each of us is truly part of an extended family that includes all people everywhere. But today the human future depends on more than just a few wise people understanding the concept. The quality of life for humanity in the years to come depends on ever-increasing numbers of people incorporating this understanding into their everyday lives. The health and survival of the human species now depends on how deeply we grasp the reality of our interdependence.
Whether we acknowledge it or not, we all have a choice to be either accomplices in the status quo or everyday revolutionaries. We have a choice whether to succumb to the consumer trance, identify our self worth by our net worth, and race by each other in the night – or to build lives of caring, substance and beauty.
In our so very troubled times, hope itself can seem like a romantic fallacy. The news we hear is so filled with horrors and tragedies, so replete with examples of humanity’s failures, that it can seem like a childish fantasy to still root for all that is good in us. But I believe the real news on this planet is love – why it exists, where it came from and where it is going.
This is why, even though I fail at it far more than I succeed, I still try to follow the advice of the author Og Mandino, who wrote: “Treat everyone you meet as if he or she were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do so with no thought of reward. Your life will never be the same.”
Originally published at HuffingtonPost.com.
Photo credit: © Oleksii Sergieiev | Dreamstime.com
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By John Robbins on November 3, 2010
I am someone who longs for world peace. Perhaps you are, too. But every single day our world spends more than $4 billion on war. The last hundred years have been by far the bloodiest in human history.
I support human rights and human dignity. I want every child to grow up healthy and strong. No doubt you do, too. But today, like every day, 20,000 children will die of hunger and poverty. Even in the world’s wealthiest country, the U.S., nearly 25 percent of children live below the poverty line.
I believe in upholding the brotherhood and sisterhood of all people. I believe in the inherent worth of every human being. But we live in a time of grotesque inequalities. There are shoe companies who pay famous athletes $20 million to endorse their shoes, while paying their workers only 20 cents an hour to make them. The CEOs of some companies make more money in an hour than many of the company’s employees make in a year.
Many of the world’s spiritual traditions teach that inner peace is found when you love the world as it is, rather than faulting it for not living up to your expectations. But our addictions are not only damaging our spirits, they are also causing irreparable harm to the biosphere and to humanity’s future.
I believe in holding a positive attitude toward life. But the rate at which forests are disappearing, coral reefs are deteriorating, the arctic ice cap is melting, and species are going extinct is undermining the capacity of the earth to support human life.
I draw strength from my kinship with animals. Some of my best friends have had four legs. Perhaps you, too, have had a relationship with an animal that has enriched you as a human being. But today, almost all of our meat and dairy products come from animals raised under conditions of horrific cruelty.
There are so many kinds of pain and loss in our times. There is illness and financial stress, there is growing unemployment and homelessness, there are oil spills and terrorists. It can seem that our little flickering candles of faith are no match for the hurricane winds of destruction and despair the world can so relentlessly blow our way. There are things happening in our world today that must make the angels weep.
Here’s what I believe: If you are going to face the suffering and destruction of life, and if you want to find a way to be effective and positive in response, you must also be open to the life-affirming powers of creativity and joy.
It can sometimes seem that we are on a planetary death march, and yet we are also living in an age of miracles. Some are so common we often take them for granted. There is the miracle of color and the miracle of music. There is the miracle of tears and the miracle of laughter. There is the miracle of breathing and the miracle of sunsets. There is the miracle of people continuing to strive for a happier world even in the face of devastation and grief.
At this very moment, people are learning new ways to communicate, to understand each other, and to resolve conflicts. Right now, people are learning to read, while others are writing poetry, and others are dancing and singing.
With every breath you take, relationships are growing, new health-giving practices are being discovered, ancient feuds are being overcome, and people are finding ways to restore their connections to the living earth. At this moment, as in every moment, ever growing numbers of people are working for a better world for themselves and for all children, now and yet to come.
We are not done. Our despair is not meant to destroy us but to awaken new life in us. Our wounds can give us depth, empathy and understanding. Our hardships can be places where we meet others and grow.
Yes, there is ugliness, which is why it matters when we bring beauty. Yes, there is great suffering, so let us live with great compassion.
This is what I have to say at this time in history. There are forces at work in the human psyche that are destructive and unconscious. And yet there is also something in us that is wondrous, that touches the infinite and belongs to the sacred.
Let us stand for this. Our dreams and prayers are rooted in something greater than the forces of death. Our grief and fury at the world’s brutalities are part of our awakening. There is something mysterious taking place in this world that is part of our healing.
With all its delusions and broken dreams, our world today is still a place where our hearts can meet and grow wings. There is horror and agony here, yes, and it is at times overwhelming. But there are also countless opportunities for the illumination of beauty and the awakening of love.
We are not done. There are sources of joy here, and we are here to protect them and cherish them.
We are not done. We can still make our lives into works of art. We can still create thriving, just and sustainable ways of life.
Bitter winds are howling. Let them howl. We can shelter each other and put our little flames together. Maybe we will yet find that the pain we feared would destroy us rather brings us back to what gives us life.
We are here to live, not merely survive. We are here to fully express and celebrate the gifts we each have to give to the world, and to receive the gifts that others have to give to us, as well.
Let us touch with love the inevitable suffering in our lives, and in the lives of those we meet. Let us tend with tender mercy that which is dying in us and in our world. And let us welcome the new life dawning in each of our souls.
We who are alive, with breath in our bodies and love in our hearts, have so very much to be thankful for. In all that takes place over the course of our lives, may we never lose track of our capacity for joy. And may we never forget the power of the choices we make.
Originally posted at HuffingtonPost.com on May 5, 2010 by John Robbins.
Photo Credit: empiredude1
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By John Robbins on July 29, 2010
I am someone who longs for world peace. Perhaps you are, too. But every single day our world spends more than $4 billion on war. The last hundred years have been by far the bloodiest in human history.
I support human rights and human dignity. I want every child to grow up healthy and strong. No doubt you do, too. But today, like every day, 20,000 children will die of hunger and poverty. Even in the world’s wealthiest country, the U.S., nearly 25 percent of children live below the poverty line.
I believe in upholding the brotherhood and sisterhood of all people. I believe in the inherent worth of every human being. But we live in a time of grotesque inequalities. There are shoe companies who pay famous athletes $20 million to endorse their shoes, while paying their workers only 20 cents an hour to make them. The CEOs of some companies make more money in an hour than many of the company’s employees make in a year.
Many of the world’s spiritual traditions teach that inner peace is found when you love the world as it is, rather than faulting it for not living up to your expectations. But our addictions are not only damaging our spirits, they are also causing irreparable harm to the biosphere and to humanity’s future.
I believe in holding a positive attitude toward life. But the rate at which forests are disappearing, coral reefs are deteriorating, the arctic ice cap is melting, and species are going extinct is undermining the capacity of the earth to support human life.
I draw strength from my kinship with animals. Some of my best friends have had four legs. Perhaps you, too, have had a relationship with an animal that has enriched you as a human being. But today, almost all of our meat and dairy products come from animals raised under conditions of horrific cruelty.
There are so many kinds of pain and loss in our times. There is illness and financial stress, there is growing unemployment and homelessness, there are oil spills and terrorists. It can seem that our little flickering candles of faith are no match for the hurricane winds of destruction and despair the world can so relentlessly blow our way. There are things happening in our world today that must make the angels weep.
Here’s what I believe. If you are going to face the suffering and destruction of life, and if you want to find a way to be effective and positive in response, you must also be open to the life affirming powers of creativity and joy.
It can sometimes seem that we are on a planetary death march, and yet we are also living in an age of miracles. Some are so common we often take them for granted. There is the miracle of color and the miracle of music. There is the miracle of tears and the miracle of laughter. There is the miracle of breathing and the miracle of sunsets. There is the miracle of people continuing to strive for a happier world even in the face of devastation and grief.
At this very moment, people are learning new ways to communicate, to understand each other, and to resolve conflicts. Right now, people are learning to read, while others are writing poetry, and others are dancing and singing. With every breath you take, relationships are growing, new health-giving practices are being discovered, ancient feuds are being overcome, and people are finding ways to restore their connections to the living earth. At this moment, as in every moment, ever growing numbers of people are working for a better world for themselves and for all children, now and yet to come.
We are not done. Our despair is not meant to destroy us but to awaken new life in us. Our wounds can give us depth, empathy and understanding. Our hardships can be places where we meet others and grow.
Yes, there is ugliness, which is why it matters when we bring beauty. Yes, there is great suffering, so let us live with great compassion.
This is what I have to say at this time in history. There are forces at work in the human psyche that are destructive and unconscious. And yet there is also something in us that is wondrous, that touches the infinite and belongs to the sacred.
Let us stand for this. Our dreams and prayers are rooted in something greater than the forces of death. Our grief and fury at the world’s brutalities are part of our awakening. There is something mysterious taking place in this world that is part of our healing.
With all its delusions and broken dreams, our world today is still a place where our hearts can meet and grow wings. There is horror and agony here, yes, and it is at times overwhelming. But there are also countless opportunities for the illumination of beauty and the awakening of love.
We are not done. There are sources of joy here, and we are here to protect them and cherish them.
We are not done. We can still make our lives into works of art. We can still create thriving, just and sustainable ways of life.
Bitter winds are howling. Let them howl. We can shelter each other and put our little flames together. Maybe we will yet find that the pain we feared would destroy us rather brings us back to what gives us life.
We are here to live, not merely survive. We are here to fully express and celebrate the gifts we each have to give to the world, and to receive the gifts that others have to give to us, as well.
Let us touch with love the inevitable suffering in our lives, and in the lives of those we meet. Let us tend with tender mercy that which is dying in us and in our world. And let us welcome the new life dawning in each of our souls.
We who are alive, with breath in our bodies and love in our hearts, have so very much to be thankful for. In all that takes place over the course of our lives, may we never lose track of our capacity for joy. And may we never forget the power of the choices we make.
Photo Credit: Tony the Misfit
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