January 1, 2025
A group of people suddenly find themselves in a totally dark room. At first there is shock and silence, with each person lost in their own reactions and thoughts. Then someone strikes a match. And another. By that light, someone finds a piece of an old candle in their handbag and holds it out to the match. Now there is enough light for another to find an old box of candles in a drawer, and candles are handed around. As the light spreads, everyone begins to talk to their neighbor about what can be done.
A good morning to you on this New Year’s Eve,
In honor of many New Year’s Day gatherings I have held through the years, as well as your own serious reflections about your life as previous new years were about to begin, I wanted to share with you some thoughts, poems, quotes, and inspirational videos to help kick off 2025. And hopefully to share a spark of light.
As 2025 begins, the need for positive ways to move forward has never been greater. There are so many problems in our world — deep divisions in our own country, devastating wars in numerous lands (and the threat of even larger conflicts), the peril of climate change, decreasing faith in and commitment to democracy, the rise of autocratic leaders all over the world, a decreasing commitment to values of any kind except pure self-interest, and many young people feeling alienated, lonely, depressed, and even despairing. We could be in for some dark times.
Reading history does give me some solace, for there have been many dark times in every locale one can name, yet people in each place have survived and then flourished again — although sometimes it took decades, even centuries. I hope that is not what is in store for us now.
Dealing with Difficult Times
Whatever is in store, each one of us has a choice about how we will respond. And the place to begin is given by William James:
“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”
But to be able to choose, one must develop a certain amount of consciousness about who they are and what the world is really like. In fact, consciousness is often spoken of as an inner light, and those who have awakened to the truth are often called illumined or enlightened.
Throughout history, by choosing wisely how they would focus their attention and use their consciousness to make good choices, some people have been able to rise above the most difficult outer circumstance and find their way to a life of meaning and fulfillment. You can be one of those people today.
Carl Jung said that by increasing your conscious awareness you will “kindle a light in the darkness.” If you keep at it, you might even join those who found their way to peace, love, and even joy in the most challenging of circumstances. Then you will be able to share those gifts with others.
This is what the greatest souls in every age, even in the darkest of times, have done. While dealing with the problems they faced, they found a way to uplift the people around them, bringing light into the darkness of their age.
Bring to mind the struggles faced by Viktor Frankl, Roberto Assagioli, and Etty Hillesum in Nazi prison camps, and how they rose above the difficulties to inspire and help millions.
Or Nelson Mandela, imprisoned for 27 years yet emerging with a calm and temperate attitude that changed his nation and inspired people all over the world. The same is true of Mahatmas Gandhi, who was imprisoned numerous times, beaten, denied the simplest comforts. Instead of being broken, he chose to serve others and even fast while in prison to advance the cause he believed in. After enduring many years of struggle and turmoil, his leadership and example gave birth to the largest democracy in the world.
Think of the incredible life and death challenges faced by Lincoln and his personal suffering over the choices he had to make during a devastating war — yet he won a great victory and emerged as an inspiration for all future generations all over the world. The list could go on and on: Rosa Parks, Winston Churchill, Florence Nightingale, Martin Luther King, Joan of Arc, George Washington, Mother Teresa, and so many more.
The same can still happen today. Most of us are not a Gandhi or Mother Teresa, but each of us can do our part. That part might be small, but each one of us can at least do that. And, who knows, if several of us do our small part, the effect could be mighty. It is, in fact, during the most difficult times that it is vital that we step forth and do what we can. In so doing, we might just find our own fulfillment, for difficult times are an ideal crucible for finding meaning and true fulfillment. Carl Jung suggested as much when he said:
“It is exactly where you feel the most frightened and most in pain that the opportunity for growth lies.”
If you face into the difficulties instead of avoiding them, you can become much more than you thought yourself capable of becoming. As Kahlil Gibran said:
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls. The most massive characters are seared with scars.”
And the spiritual teacher Ram Dass gave this prescription for using difficult times to reach the highest possible fulfillment:
“To look at the universe and see all of the forces — the heavy ones, the light ones, the destructive ones, the creative ones — to find what your part is in it. And if your part is that of the Bodhisattva — that of reducing the suffering of all human beings, and that’s all your work is, you just do it and do it and do it until there is no you in there … there is merely this instrument for the relieving of suffering of all beings.”
While doing your part, this advice from Kurt Vonnegut is quite valuable to keep in mind — and in your heart:
“Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe the world to be a beautiful place.”
Annie Dillard, in Teaching a Stone to Talk, gives a vivid image of how a time of trial can break the shell that is restricting our full experience of life:
“In the deeps are the violence and terror of which psychology has warned us. But if you ride these monsters deeper down, if you drop with them farther over the world’s rim, you find what our sciences cannot locate or name, the substrate, the ocean or matrix or ether which buoys the rest, which gives goodness its power for good, and evil its power for evil, the unified field: (Here we find) our complex and inexplicable caring for each other, and for our life together here.”
All this sounds very serious indeed, so it is important to remember the great value of humor. It lightens the load for everyone, lifts the heaviness our life journeys often bring. It also keeps us grounded in true reality by keeping us, at least momentarily, from taking ourselves and life so seriously. When we are focused only on the problems, as well as on our own importance, we cannot see the broader reality. Most of us live within and from our own limited views.
But I can assure you, whatever your current views might be, they do not encompass the whole of reality. There is much about the broader reality that you do not know or understand — and this includes thinking you would be happier if you could just get what you want. If you are tempted to this conclusion, just remember what George Bernard Shaw said (perhaps echoing the Buddha):
“There are two great disappointments in life: Not getting what you want — and getting it.”
As for where most of us are on the journey, Albert P. Ryder definitely speaks for me here. Perhaps he speaks for you as well:
“Have you ever seen an inchworm crawl up a leaf or a twig, and then, clinging to the very end, revolve in the air, feeling for something, to reach something? That’s like me. I am trying to find something out there beyond the place on which I have footing.”
What Happens Next?
I have thought a lot about what happens next in our country and in our world. One thing I am sure of is the desperate need for glimmers of light in the darkness. You can be one of those sparks of light.
As I try to be that myself, the thoughts and guidance of others help and inspire me, and many wise people who went before us insisted that coming to know who you really are is crucial if you are to find meaning and fulfillment, as well as if you wish to help others.
Maha Ghosananda, the Buddhist monk who served as leader of Cambodian Buddhists during the terrible Khmer Rouge period of suffering, put it this way.
“When you make peace with yourself, you make peace with the world.”
Jesus, in the Gospel of Thomas, said:
“If you bring forth what is inside you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is inside you, what you don’t bring forth will destroy you.”
In a related way, and also pointing to the necessity of gaining knowledge of who you really are deep inside, D.H. Lawrence said:
“We are not free when we are doing just what we like. … We are only free when we are doing what the deepest self likes. And there is the getting down to the deepest self! It takes some diving.”
The above quotes require a good bit of reflection to truly understand, and so does this one by Franz Kafka:
“You can hold back from the suffering. You have free permission to do so. And it is in accordance with your nature. But perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could have avoided.”
Countless wise ones have chosen to face into the suffering, have taken the deep dive into knowing themselves. When the great Buddhist mystic Shantideva did so, he found this:
All the joy the world contains
Has come through wishing happiness for others.
All the misery the world contains
Has come through wanting pleasure for oneself.
And this is a part of what the Sufi poet and mystic Rumi found:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.
Catherine of Siena found this:
“If only you could understand how I feel. All that I reveal is nothing compared to what I feel. My mind is so full of joy and happiness that I am amazed that my soul stays in my body. So much love of my fellow-men has blazed up in me that I could face death for them cheerfully and with great joy in my heart.”
While many of the quotes above are from earlier periods in history, this one is less than a month old. It demonstrates clearly that inspiring people are all around us today. Venice Williams is a community leader in Milwaukee. She wrote this poem right after the recent election, and I find it very moving:
Here’s how we get through the next four years
You are awakening to the
same country you fell asleep to.
The very same country.
Pull yourself together.
And,
when you see me,
do not ask me
“What do we do now?
How do we get through the next four years?”
Some of my Ancestors dealt with
at least 400 years of this
under worse conditions.
Continue to do the good work.
Continue to build bridges not walls.
Continue to lead with compassion.
Continue the demanding work
of liberation for all.
Continue to dismantle broken systems,
large and small.
Continue to set the best example
for the children.
Continue to be a vessel of nourishing joy.
Continue right where you are.
Right where you live into your days.
Do so in the name of
The Creator who expects
nothing less from each of us.
And if you are not “continuing”
ALL of the above,
in community, partnership, collaboration?
What is it you have been doing?
What is it you are waiting for?
Another prescription for how to proceed in difficult times was given by author and storyteller Clare Pinkola Estes:
“One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these – to be fierce and to show mercy toward others are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.”
But what is the soul? There are many views; Ralph Waldo Emerson held this one:
“The soul is … a light … the background of our being, an immensity not possessed and that cannot be possessed. From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things.”
“The Soul … is not diverse from things, from space, from light, from time, but one with them, and proceeds from the same source whence their life and being proceed. Here is the fountain of action and of thought. Here are the lungs of that inspiration which giveth man wisdom.”
Music That Lifts Me Up
For me, music helps expand my awareness and open to the light. It can get me in touch with my soul. At times it has actually brought me into contact with the “something more” that most of us feel is there.
All kinds of music. This YouTube video is from one of the most watched performances of all time, so you might have seen it. One version alone has been viewed almost 200 million times, and there are numerous other versions.
It is a music video made in the mid-80s, when some of the greatest singers of the era gathered for the U.S.A. for Africa concert to record the song: “We Are the World.” They were all there in person, most at their own expense. (Just imagine the complications of getting all these folks together at one time):
Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Kenny Rogers, Tina Turner, Michael Jackson, Billy Joel, Willie Nelson, Ray Charles, Dionne Warwick, Cyndi Lauper, Diana Ross, and several others you will recognize. There was a chorus of about 25 as well, which included Harry Belafonte, Waylon Jennings, Dan Aykroyd, La Toya Jackson, Bette Midler, Smokey Robinson, and many others. It was conducted by Quincy Jones.
Over the almost 40 years since it was made, interest in the power of this video and how it happened has hardly waned — Netflix made a highly regarded documentary just this year about it called “The Greatest Night in Pop.” It reflects an optimism of the 80s that is less present today, but perhaps watching it will help rekindle its timeless wisdom for you.
Here is my favorite short version (with almost 200 million views):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AjkUyX0rVw
If you want to see a longer cut of the same performance (there have been 115 million views of this version):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p34sK9AYQN4
And if you would like some help recognizing the performers, this Wikipedia page tells the story of the concert and provides a list of the performers in the order of their individual performances.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Are_the_World
More Inspiring Music
In a different vein, here is one of the most beautiful versions of “Hallelujah” you will ever hear:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLk9pzmaFHY
If you want the original, here is Leonard Cohen performing his song in London:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrLk4vdY28Q
And here is one of the most inspiring versions of “You Raise Me Up” I have ever heard, performed by Martin Hurkens:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RojlDwD07I
Pentatonix has many great Christmas videos. This one I don’t think I have sent you before (but since there have been 320 million views of it, you might well have seen it). It raises a question that is worth pondering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifCWN5pJGIE
On a Less Serious Note
For a little energy boost, give yourself over to these marvelous performers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZagsLrNzg3I
You probably can’t join the above group, but you can start with a few plastic buckets (and note that over 200 million people have viewed this one):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqJdzYY_Fas
Here is Anna Kendrick creating music in a most unusual way. While you watch and listen, try to imagine how she did this with only one pause and retake:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmSbXsFE3l8
To add a little humor, here is the funniest version of “Shake it Off” you will ever see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XFBUM8dMqw
And this is definitely the most humorous version of “White Christmas” I have seen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ooc5eJc5SHA
Short Videos to Entertain and Inspire
Music is not always necessary for inspiration or humor. Here are three short videos that give simple lessons with humor. This one is on how to “Get Service”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D38S9o_6qnc
For a dose of the best medicine available for most ails, try this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf5TgVRGND4
And if you sometimes feel the absurdities of life, you are not alone:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q34z5dCmC4M
Finally, if you want to settle into a meditative state, a video to accompany you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDyIeHPxdUg
May this coming year bring to our suffering world a great deal more peace, and may it especially bring peace in body, mind, and spirit to you and all those close to you.
Finally, I join with the Sufi poet Hafiz in saying:
I wish I could show you
when you are lonely or in darkness
the astonishing light of your own being. (Then)
I could tell you a priceless secret about your worth.
With love,
David