Finding Sanctuary

by Betsy Toll

The tools of fear take many forms, machinery and weapons aimed at our hearts, coming at us from all sides to suffocate our spirits. Terror alerts, domestic spying, wars and occupations, Armageddon fantasies, doublespeak and propaganda from across the political spectrum, the list goes on and on. We cringe and cower, shudder and groan as fear in all its forms limits our thinking, defines our truth, declares its reality, and strips away hope.

Still, out by my doorstep snowdrops will open soon and any day now colorful crocuses will brighten our paths. The whole Earth's will to goodness and the subtle whispers of beauty, caring, connection, and our deep longing for peace, seep up like timeless fragrance from ten thousand blossoms, making cracks in the pavement, overpowering impossible places.

Any day’s headlines

The headlines and subject lines of news reports are relentless: terror, torture, militarism, murder, poison, pollution, corruption, coercion, toxins, attacks, outrage, oppression, deception—the litany goes on and on and on. Our hearts are bruised and our spirits sickened by the massive doses of fear meted out in radio, TV, periodicals, newspapers, online.

And yet we cannot turn away, we cannot bury our heads or close our eyes and minds to the news of our world. So we take it in, whether with skepticism or naivete, pain or paralysis, and it works its way with us.

We are outraged or frightened, enlivened or stricken, sometimes in sequence. We critique the intention behind the constant barrage of pain-filled information, and it can easily be argued that the manipulation of the public mind, and the deliberate directing of our attention to things we should fear are not accidental, by either the right or the left. And even that knowledge weighs us yet further down. We take cynicism and despair with our morning tea as readily as honey and cream.

In the onslaught of information, disinformation, and distraction, in this nightmare of brutishness and suffering, where is there hope? Our children are inheriting a world more dangerous and painful than we ever imagined. Sometimes my only response is tears, other times snappishness, irritability, fatigue. Anger and bitterness, despair and depression stop in more often than I like to admit.

In other news…

But then there are the snowdrops. Wild roses out by a fencepost. A solitary songbird praises the morning even before the sky is light. The soft air of dawn caresses my skin as the sun is rising. The smell of cedar and pine saturate the afternoon sunlight, warm soil slips through my fingers in the garden. The juice of a pear trickles down my chin. My son’s raucous drumming matches my heartbeat and moves me to dance. The music of angels harmonizes my daughter’s voice as she fills the air with arias. Moonlight wraps the world in timeless grace.

I shift my attention, and the world is my temple, my heaven, my sanctuary.

I see proofs of magic, of endless grace and I am home. I hear and feel them, smell them and taste them, and the world is once again beautiful and messy, magical and hopeful, mysterious and whole. And I know in the depth of my bones that beauty and richness and goodness will win. This is my faith, the truth that I live by.

The dreadful fruits of violence must ultimately fail, undone by the aikido of something subtler yet greater that both precedes and outlasts them. This I believe to be the fundamental truth—that grace and peace are the heart of the universe. This is my prayer and my sanctuary. Though pain and sorrow, conflict and contradiction are woven into the fabric of life, still I take refuge in the beauty and unfathomable mystery of the universe. And taking refuge, breathing deep, here in the present moment I am home.

Betsy Toll is Executive Director of Living Earth. This essay appeared in the April 2004 issue of Oregon Peaceworker with a different title. Contact her at Betsy@LivingEarthGatherings.Org