Dreams and Anguish—We’re in This Together
I don’t ordinarily spend a lot of time with Pope Francis, but he came to me this Thanksgiving morning in the form of an op-ed piece in The New York Times. I’ve been known to call him Frankie, so you know, somewhat irreverently and in genuine gratitude for a pope who is even slightly connected to the world we live in today which is more than can be said for some of his predecessors.
Frankie has a new book coming out, and his essay is an excerpt from that. He makes some stellar points, things I’ve been writing about for a while now, but worth repeating on a day wherein we are all, hopefully, slowing down a little—and, ideally, staying home.
Our universe is a whole. That’s why it starts with the Latin prefix for one. Because of that, Beloved, within each and every problem/crisis/struggle/drama lies the seed of its solution. This is classical metaphysics.
Frankie says it this way, “In every personal ‘Covid,’ so to speak, in every ‘stoppage,’ [and I would add here: pay attention-age] what is revealed is what needs to change: our lack of internal freedom, the idols we have been serving, the ideologies we have tried to live by, the relationships we have neglected.”
Each of these things—idols, ideologies, neglected relatednesses—have at their core severance, the severing that means we do not care, or worse, we fear to care for one another. We fear that if we care for one another the cost will be too high or that it is a cost we do not wish to bear.
Think, though, of the nurses, the orderlies, the nursing assistants, the med techs, the doctors, the caregivers, all the essential workers, who, since February, have paid that price and are still paying that price. As I write, the virus is spreading exponentially over the United States without regard to anything we hold dear. Covid is an equal opportunity virus.
FWIW, Dr. Megan Ranney was quoted in The Times as saying, “I hate to be apocalyptic, but [Thanksgiving]’ll be the day that will determine our trajectory for the rest of the year. If everyone goes to celebrate, we’re screwed. It’ll seed hundreds of thousands of infections in a single day.”
Pope Francis calls those who serve in the face of it “the antibodies to the virus of indifference. They remind us that our lives are a gift and we grow by giving of ourselves, not preserving ourselves but losing ourselves in service.”
Indifference, Beloved, is a much more deadly virus than Covid-19, and I would argue, far more rampant.
Whether you have been touched directly by the pandemic or merely been a witness to it at some degree of remove, none of us are untouched by its existence. None of us are safe unless all of us are safe—especially given the alarming news about AstraZeneca’s nefarious reporting of the efficaciousness of its vaccine—and those who serve in the face of it deserve our collective cooperation as part of our acknowledgment of their service.
Back to the Pope, “It is all too easy for some to take an idea—in this case, for example, personal freedom—and turn it into an ideology, creating a prism through which they judge everything.” I’d never put the two words into relationship with one another before, have you?
Idea and ideology.
The word idea comes to us from Greek via Latin and means form, pattern.
The word ideology comes to us also from Greek via French in the late 18th century and means a system of ideas.
Activist/Artist Brad Heckman’s #sketchquote this morning depicts absurdist playwright Eugene Ionesco. The words read, “Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together.”
When idea becomes ideology, Beloved, we close our minds and sever ourselves from new ideas. We, if you will, argue solely for the status quo, the devil we know. We are not open to change when we become ideologues.
Ideas are not meant to be perceived through rigid prisms. Those rigidities mandate enforcement not exploration. Change always requires exploration of what is unknown. I would submit to you that ideologues operate from fear that has taken over their hearts, or, as Ionesco says, anguish, a word that shares roots with angina, or heart pain.
We all carry our share of anguish, Beloved. Do not think for a minute that I’m saying we don’t, but we absolutely have a choice as to what we do about it. We can dig in, put the brakes on, stop everything, and refuse to pay attention to the seeds of healing in the very things we are experiencing.
Or we can follow Frankie’s metaphysical advice, “This is a moment to dream big, to rethink our priorities—what we value, what we want, what we seek—and to commit to act in our daily life on what we have dreamed of.”
That’s what anguish is really for—to direct our attention to where it needs to be. I daresay Pope Francis speaks for his boss when he continues, “God asks us to dare to create something new.”
That new thing has to be dream-based, Beloved. Your dreams, my dreams, and our dreams. We know what it’s like to have anguish bring us together. Now we must let our dreams do the same.
Dr. Susan Corso is a spiritual teacher, the founder of iAmpersand, and the author of The Mex Mysteries, the Boots & Boas Books, and spiritual nonfiction. Her website is susancorso.com.