Day 32 Lux et Pax; or, Risen Indeed

My dreamtime early this morning yielded a high school football cheer I haven’t heard in almost fifty years.

What do we want? A touchdown. When do we want it? Now.

I hear it in the voice of Tammy, last name lost to time, who sat in front of me in French class. I’m sure you hear the cadence. It’s pretty much Cheer 101.

Except, as usual, my brain did something entirely different with it.

What do we want? Health & Wealth. When do we want it? Now.

I know you have read an overt message in these Special Seeds that if we do not want for everyone what we want for ourselves that we are amiss in our desiring, and it will come back to haunt us in a not-so-good way. I believe this completely—with my whole heart.

The moment there is a them of any kind, there is, de facto, an us.

We cannot survive under us and them divisiveness.

“In a pandemic, there is always the hunt for blame. President Trump has done it, on numerous occasions calling the coronavirus a “Chinese virus.’’ All over the world people are pointing fingers, driven by their fears and anxieties to go after The Other.”

For as long as there is an Other, we condemn ourselves.

I think it was in AA that I first heard about finger-pointing something on the order of ... if I point one finger at you, look at where the other three point. At me. Ohhhh.

In Germany, “[t]he country’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said ... that the pandemic was not a war, but a chance to reconsider what is important in life and recalibrate how society functions.”

What do we want? That’s the seminal question of life—for individuals, for families, for clans, for neighborhoods, for all groups of all kinds everywhere from now until the end of time.

It’s the one question that I’ve asked every client I’ve seen for almost forty years.

“Last year, an estimated 70,000 faithful crammed into St. Peter’s Square on Easter morning to hear the pope deliver his “Urbi et Orbi” (“To the City and to the World”); this year he said mass in a near-empty basilica live-streamed. The flavor of his message was “This is not a time for indifference, because the whole world is suffering and needs to be united in facing the pandemic.”

Unfortunately, many of us want authority to decide and go for what we want without responsibility.

There’s a word for that, Beloved. It’s Tyranny.

Tyranny requires a Them.

Queen Elizabeth recorded an unheard-of Easter Saturday message. “Many religions have festivals which celebrate light overcoming darkness. Such occasions are often accompanied by the lighting of candles. They seem to speak to every culture, and appeal to people of all faiths, and of none. ... [W]hen we gather happily around a source of light[,] [i]t unites us.”

That’s why my brain went for Lux in today’s title; it means light.

The Queen continued, “We know that coronavirus will not overcome us. As dark as death can be—particularly for those suffering with grief—light and life are greater.”

One of the accomplishments of the coronavirus, strange as this may sound, is that it has put front and center for all people—not just those who are ill—that health, true health, makes life quite literally possible.

As someone who has lived with a chronic, progressive disease for more than half my life, I can most assuredly affirm that most people take their health for granted—for as long as its theirs.

There’s a definite us—the healthy ones; and a definite them—the ill ones. Healthy people, as a rule, do not even think of the ill folk unless illness touches their loved ones.

In pandemic world, the health of every single person living is at risk, some more than others.

On this Easter Sunday, health = lux.

Health is the light that I want for every being in the whole world.

Consider the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt from 1944.

“We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence.”

In “The America We Need,” The New York Times Editorial Board wrote, “This nation was ailing long before the coronavirus reached its shores. The inequalities of wealth have become inequalities of health. [G]overnment should provide all Americans with the freedom that comes from a stable and prosperous life.”

Government doesn’t. Or, hasn’t to date. Certainly not the U.S. government.

“The United States does not guarantee the availability of affordable housing to its citizens, as do most developed nations. It does not guarantee reliable access to health care, as does virtually every other developed nation. The cost of a college education in the United States is among the highest in the developed world. And beyond the threadbare nature of the American safety net, the government has pulled back from investment in infrastructure, education and basic scientific research, the building blocks of future prosperity. It is not surprising many Americans have lost confidence in the government as a vehicle for achieving the things that we cannot achieve alone.”

“The idealization of individual action in an open marketplace has had its mirror image in the denigration of collective action through government.”

Here, sadly, is the flip-side of Tyranny.

Unfortunately, many of us have ended up with full responsibility to decide and go for what we want without the authority that makes it possible.

There’s a word for that, Beloved. It’s Martyrdom.

Martyrdom, too, requires a Them.

I’ll say it again. There is no Them. Not now. Not ever. There really never has been; There really never will be. And until we both learn this fact and live as though it is Truth, we will suffer. Sad as that is, it’s also true.

That’s why my brain went for Pax in today’s title; it means peace.

This week Viet Thanh Nguyen wrote beautifully in “The Ideas That Won’t Survive the Coronavirus.”

“If anything good emerges out of this period, it might be an awakening to the pre-existing conditions of our body politic. We were not as healthy as we thought we were. The biological virus afflicting individuals is also a social virus. Its symptoms—inequality, callousness, selfishness and a profit motive that undervalues human life and overvalues commodities—were for too long masked by the hearty good cheer of American exceptionalism, the ruddiness of someone a few steps away from a heart attack.”

Another of the accomplishments of the coronavirus, strange as this may sound, is that it has put front and center for all people—not just those who are poor—that wealth, true wealth, not just money, makes life quite literally possible.

As someone who has lived as unaffiliated clergy in service to humanity for more thirty-five years, I can most assuredly affirm that most people take their wealth for granted, money included—for as long as its theirs.

There’s a definite us—the wealthy ones; and a definite them—the poor ones. Wealthy people, as a rule, do not even think of the poor folk unless poverty touches their loved ones.

In pandemic world, the wealth of every single person living is at risk, some more than others.

On this Easter Sunday, wealth = pax.

Wealth is the peace that I want for every being in the whole world.

Mr. Nguyen continues, “Is it too much to hope that the forced isolation of many Americans, and the forced labor of others, might compel radical acts of self-reflection, self-assessment and, eventually, solidarity? Will we accept a world of division and scarcity, where we must fight over insufficient resources and opportunities, or imagine a future when our society is measured by how well it takes care of the ill, the poor, the aged and the different?

“Our real enemy does not come from the outside, but from within. Our real enemy is not the virus but our response to the virus—a response that has been degraded and deformed by the structural inequalities of our society.”

I write this certainty this Easter morning that you who are reading these words, given a new choice, wouldn’t sign your name in either polarizing column. Neither Tyrant. Nor Martyr. Isn’t there another way, a better way? There is.

What do we want? Health & Wealth. When do we want it? Now.

There’s a follow-up question. For whom?

For us, Beloved.

All of us who survive this pandemic are facing just this choice, and until we bring, willingly, the yeast of our own health which will help the health of everyone to rise, the yeast of our own wealth which will help the wealth of everyone to rise, we will be unable to say, “Risen indeed.”

Sign up in this column: Us. I’ll meet you there.

Dr. Susan Corso is a metaphysician and medical intuitive with a private counseling practice for more than 35 years. She has written too many books to list here. Her website is www.susancorso.com

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