Everything we do is holy
Because we are part of the whole...
Dear ones,
Thank you for being here. I’ve been quiet for a while. Covid. I’m fine now. This letter begins by acknowledging the sorry state of the world and ends by talking about cartooning—a natural progression…
The Sorry State of the World
You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. [Sorry, I am alarmed]. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains. Matthew 24:6-13 New International Version
I was going to use the King James Version for the quote above, but the New International Version is so much better. The last line in KJV says: All these are the beginning of sorrows. Hey, thanks for nothing.
All these are the beginning of birth pains turns the quote upside down. Is it ‘the end’ which will be birthed? If so, then what is ‘an end’? Is it a beginning?
I don’t read Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, so I don’t know what the original text says. I know what birth pains are. They are the price of something new coming into being. As the mother of five people, I have felt plenty of birth pains in my life, and although birth pains are painful, they are not the same as pain that signals illness or injury. Birth pains signal a miracle. They allow a different interpretation of pain.
If only I could see all the insanity and suffering in this world as birth pains. Isn’t something new always being born, and something old always dying? Aren’t all ends beginnings? Isn’t constant and inevitable change the nature of reality, as it obeys the intricate laws of the material world, whether we like it or not, whether we understand it or not?
So What?
So what if that’s true? The fact that change is inevitable does nothing to alleviate suffering. It does nothing to alleviate my sadness at the sorry state of the world; especially the sorry state of us. I don’t think humans are more important or better than other life forms. A case could be made that no other life form on this planet causes more destruction and suffering than we do. Are we an infestation, a pandemic?
So much of my sadness at the sorry state of the world is compassion for the extreme poignancy of the human condition; my own, yours, and everyone else’s. What a mystery tour this is. How incomprehensible and uncontrollable. How vulnerable we are to suffering…
Yes, I’m moaning about the sorry state of the world—about human insufficiency causing so much harm and suffering. It is important to me to say that I am also astonished by the consciousness, understanding, and love in action demonstrated by so many of our species. And I’m not talking about good people vs bad people; I’m talking about people. Complex, inconsistent, unpredictable people.
This quote from the book Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, says it well:
It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.
What I think/feel (I wish there were a word that meant both) is that we humans embody a unique challenge—the possibility of an evolving sense of self with the potential to override fear and even the powerful instinct to survive, in service to an awareness of cosmic connection that is as real as meat and potatoes. Maybe more real.
We’re like a Prius… we run on gas and we run on self-generated electricity too. Though for us these alternating systems can be very confusing. They don’t always work well together.
What Gandalf said:
“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
I can’t fix the sorry state of the world. I can feel great sadness at the suffering of others, not all the time, but some of the time. When I do, am I really feeling sorry for myself, as in, OMG what if that happened to me, or to my child? I couldn’t bear it. Except that I would have to bear it, just the way that suffering humans everywhere bear whatever they have to bear, because what choice do they have?
What a dear friend said recently, in a conversation about the sorry state of the world:
"Why spend time thinking about what we have no control over? All we can do is use our love energy here at home, where we are, with those who are near."
This doesn’t mean I can’t write a letter to the editor, or join a protest to express my strong feelings about something. Or make art…
It means taking responsibility for who I am, and who I am becoming—for what I bring to the party—as the short path to possibly being helpful.
The I Ching says it better than I can:
This is the echo awakened in people through spiritual attraction. Whenever a feeling is voiced with truth and frankness, whenever a deed is the clear expression of sentiment, a mysterious and far-reaching influence is exerted. At first it acts on those who are inwardly receptive. But the circle grows larger and larger. The root of all influence lies in one’s own inner being: given true and vigorous expression in word and deed, its effect is great. The effect is but the reflection of something that emanates from one’s own heart. Any deliberate intention of an effect would only destroy the possibility of producing it. I Ching, #61 Inner Truth
Wowser! This is the advice I need to hear as an artist, a writer, a person living a life.
Everything we do is holy
My prayer for myself. Feel free to use it:
DSL (this stands for Dear Sweet Lord and/or Digital Subscriber Line… just trying for some communication here), please give me the faith and humility to accept this little life of mine as an art project. Please help me to recognize that everything I do is holy. Even the worst and stupidest things I do are holy, because I am part of the whole. Please let me understand and feel this as much as possible, so that my animal fear and my human ego can be diluted by the mystery.
Help me to be an artist.
When in doubt, draw cartoons
I’m grappling with my cartoon project, Daisi & Jane, which terrifies and excites me. I am amazed that a project that I have been thinking about and working on for so long, that in some ways I know so much about, can be so mysterious to me. Just one question after another from all over the map…
Why am I doing this? What does this character really look like? How realistic do I want my characters to be, or how reduced to a cartoon language? What level of abstraction is the most conducive to exaggeration in the service of expression? What medium do I want to use? Pencil, ink, digital drawing… I will use all of these, but in what combinations I do not yet know. What works? What is doable in terms of time?
All will be revealed in the doing, and only in the doing.
Isn’t that why we’re here? To ask the questions, and not answer them, except in the doing?
I’m still at the stage of trying to talk myself into taking this project as seriously as I need to in order to do it. Which means yielding to a kind of obsession. I need to be obsessed to do this work. I need to give myself permission to be obsessed.
My urge to comment on the sorry state of the world and other topics is strong. Often though, when I feel the urge to rant about something I think to myself, this would be more accessible if it were coming through the medium of character, of story. The difference between telling and showing.
I’m not saying that I want to use my characters as propaganda mouthpieces; I want them to be and become themselves, as fully as possible. It’s just that I’m the one who’s making them up; making up their interactions, making up the story, so what I think and feel is going to come through. That how it works. If there is propaganda involved, it will be propaganda that promotes the concept of multiple points of view, of not knowing, of change that comes from within.
Propaganda is as propaganda does
I want to promote the idea that trusting, and using our noses, and our bellies, and our hearts, without needing to know exactly what it all means, may be our best bet for saving the world.
By saving the world, I mean saving ourselves. Not at the expense of all that lives in material creation, but by caring for all that lives and all that is part of the enduring systems from which we arise, and upon which we depend.
By saving ourselves I also mean as individuals. Not saving our temporal bodies from decay and death; I mean saving our souls from missing out on the opportunity to recognize the strange and exhilarating challenge of being mind/body/spirit all in one temporary package.
One more thing I want to say:
I am terrified of taking myself seriously as an artist. There are reasons why this is so, to be decoded some other time. Sharing this with you, sharing my experience, my process, my work itself, is more helpful than I know how to express. I’m using you, my friends, with great love and gratitude. I hope you find a benefit in being used this way. Thank you so much.
I am. finding a benefit in being used this way. That's what you wanted to know, right, my dear?