What Is the Issue?

It’s hard to know what to say after a week like the one just past ... and the one unfolding right now. Wherever you are on this planet, it’s unlikely you are untouched by the events still unfolding in the United States capital. But craziness is happening elsewhere too - street violence, increasing nuclear capabilities, border closures, missing airplanes, soaring infection and death rates, economic threats, lockdowns, vaccination missteps, and many other situations that seem extreme - even by our recent standards.

Before I go further, I want you to know that this is not a pave-it-over, “let’s just move on to the healing” kind of post.  As I see it, healing in any situation begins with a full acknowledgement of what is, which includes a full reckoning of how we got here (wherever “here” is).  And sometimes it calls for an unmistakably strong, direct, and unwavering response to what occurred, both for correction and future deterrence. That  response, however, must be rooted in inner clarity and balance, not just reflexive reactivity. That’s how we get on with the healing, and that’s what this post is about.

For me personally, it takes a lot of dedication to keep myself in balance, or to get back into balance when I’ve let myself get swept up in reactions.  But what’s helping me these days is working with this deceptively simple quote from the inestimable Ron and Mary Hulnick:  “How you deal with the issue IS the issue.” 

It’s been said in other ways by other sages, but they all boil down to the same thing:  what’s happening outside you is indeed what is happening; but it’s your reaction to it, born of your interpretation of it, that causes the upset. We all know how the same set of facts can be seen and interpreted in multiple ways - some of which may seem fine, and some of which are upsetting. So what’s the problem with upset?  Nothing, except that it hurts, and except that upset - alone or unbounded - is a lousy decision-making tool.

Don’t get me wrong, I do understand the sentiment “Yeah but I SHOULD be upset about _____ (fill in the blank). Everybody should be.  How else will we get change?!”  My point of view is this:  My best responses - those that support and maintain the outcomes I value - have been those that arose out of clear-headed, sober consideration and courage, tempered with empathy and love.  That doesn’t mean that the immediacy and urgency of some situations don’t call for a quick and instinctual response.  They do.  But if the response is fueled by fear, anger, judgment or hatred, it’s likely to be sub-optimal. It may be the path of least resistance, it may provide some immediate relief and even gratification; but it’s likely to miss addressing what most needs to be addressed, and may even create more problems than it solves.

What’s far more likely to work effectively is also far more challenging:  to turn that upset into resolve to first acknowledge and put aside my own fear/anger/judgment/hatred, so that I may gain a wider, deeper, and higher understanding of both what has happened and what must be done, for the highest good of all concerned. That requires a deep and abiding courage. It takes a strong heart.

I often remind folks that the root meaning of the word courageous is “action of the heart.” The heart calls upon much more of me than my reactions … especially when those reactions demand so much of my attention. It calls upon me to sacrifice those reactions in order to act with clarity and balance.  Frankly, that’s often the last thing I want to do.  When I hear or see hatred expressed, my tendency is to go right into hating the hate.  But Martin Luther King, Jr., who was devotedly courageous and strategic, famously said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”  He also said, “To return hate for hate does nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe.  Someone must have sense enough to cut off the chain of hate and evil, and this can only be done through love.”  That’s such a crucial point:  it is only through love that we have the sense to do what needs to be done.

So what IS the issue? For me, it is whether I will find both the sense and the courage, especially in these challenging - even dire - situations, to cut off the chain of hate, starting with my own. Will I act wisely and courageously to bring light and love into the terrifying darkness, or will I intensify the darkness?

As someone in my eighth decade of life, having devoted a large part of that life to personal, social, civic and legal responses to the unloving that’s in the world, I am sure beyond doubt that love is the answer, that light is the answer. Not mushy, wishy-washy, meme-like love, but courageous love - strategic, intelligent love that lives up its name: the action of the heart. To paraphrase Gandhi’s much-quoted phrase, I must first be the change I want to see in the world. 

That, indeed and in deed, is the issue.