Repairing the Soul, Repairing the World

​We all do terrible things to each other… by intent, by neglect, and by ignorance. Up until recently I would have said that mostly this happens unintentionally. These days though, I think cruelty, rudeness, and contempt, in the name of “being real” is celebrated.

What to do about it has most of us defeated as we try to find a way to fix it. Some of us have said forget it… let’s get it on, battle to the end. That sort of thing. Pyrrhic victories and all that.

Some of us are on the edge of despair, thinking about the future, the children’s future (whether or not you have kids), the world’s future.

Others, well we don’t really know what to do, but we want to do something. We want to, not fix the world, but more like help the world heal. Heal not just our intra-human interactions, but all our interactions in the world.

So, my thoughts…

We all need to make amends without prompting; accept graciously, fully, and truly when amends are made; and try our best to be mindful in all our doings — all while speaking up for ourselves and others against inequity, violence, abuse, and harm.

That’s a really hard mix, a crazy hard balance to keep. Especially for someone who doesn’t suffer fools gladly.

It’s hard for me not to want some people to just shut up. It’s hard for me to find compassion for the willfully ignorant and stubbornly obtuse. It’s really difficult to listen to misdirection, knowing it’s coming from a place of enthusiastic witlessness, a manifestation of persistent small-mindedness.

And yet, it’s not my place to fix other people, as much as I’d want to… I’m in need of fixing myself. And that’s not anything I’d hand over to someone else to do. I want to fix the parts I’m not so keen about of myself, jettison the things I should let go of, and keep my favorite parts, and I’m certain someone else’s favorite parts of me wouldn’t be my favorites…

And in wanting to be the one who repairs my soul, why wouldn’t I expect others to want to be their own fixer.

When we repair our souls, we repair the world.