Embracing the Child
There is an African Proverb that says: “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.”
At the end of the day, that’s all any of us really want. To feel seen and heard. Not for our political views or who is in the right, but for our humanity.
The events of the past few weeks have left me quite shaken. I was frightened by what was happening to our nation’s capital, to our country, to the world, and to the people I care about. The depth of anger that was expressed by the protestors was overwhelming. It affected me physically and mentally.
And that's the thing about anger…
It’s the most superficial and volatile of all emotions. But buried deep beneath all that anger, is a whole lot of something else; fear, sadness, grief, uncertainty. And anger allows us to displace that energy onto someone or something else. It allows us to yell and scream and blame and justify. Until there's nothing left but a pile of ashes.
Avoiding the meltdown takes work involving boundaries, awareness, discomfort.
It feels like an incredibly fine line at times. A line that we don’t always know how to walk. It is human nature to see the world as a “right or wrong” place. But there is simply too much nuance to how we feel and experience everything happening around us to believe that humanity fits neatly into two sides.
I heard somewhere that if the Titanic had shifted direction by only one degree in the 24 hours leading up to the iceberg, they would never have collided. I don’t know if that’s actually true, but I love the implication. One degree seems insignificant in the moment, but has the potential to change the entire course of history.
The world feels incredibly broken to me right now, but one degree feels like something I can do. One degree feels like something that we can collectively do. And I want to be here for that.
Let’s all practice grace and patience and love. Let’s be the village that is always willing to embrace the child.
Blessings, Kathi