Balancing the Scales of Fortune

I’ve been lucky.

I grew up in an easy time, raised by parents who loved me, my disappointments light. I experienced no physical or sexual abuse, I did not comprehend the ugly shape of trauma until it was explained to me much later.

I’ve seen war only in books and movies. Vietnam ended while I was in high school. I graduated law school in the 80s, when business was booming and jobs were plentiful. I’ve only really loved one woman, and surprisingly, she peeked behind the folds that hid my quirks and tender spots, and loved me back; we are deep into our fourth decade of marriage. My health is good, my memory mostly sound.

I’ve been lucky. Outrageously, randomly lucky. No logic explains my fortune. Why I slipped the cruel fates while others took a brutal dose, I’ll never know. I recognize the disparity in the dice, I know there are countless others who got the short end of the stick, and I can’t help but contemplate the hardships they endure.

Today, there is someone lying in a trench in Donetsk, or huddled in a make-shift metro shelter in Kharkiv, listening for the hum of war machines.

There is a boy starving in the bombed-out rubble of Gaza City, without shelter or water, grieving the death of his entire family.

There are mothers carrying their babies over the jungle mountains of the Darién Gap, or clinging to a raft in the Mediterranean, praying the coyotes keep their promise.

There are children awake in bed, terrified the door will open and a man will enter, as he has done for years.

I think of those who suffer these and other unnamed atrocities and I plumb my soul to make sense of it. I find no answer, but I cannot close my eyes, I must speak out. I will never even the scales completely, but I can render aid. It is impossible, of course, to end all suffering, which is as much a part of human life as joy and beauty. But beyond the normal baseline, I am staggered by the scope, an ocean of gratuitous pain, tidal waves of torment that roll and break and roll again, roaring like the ripping of a thousand hearts. The pathology of it degrades us all. I want to stop the greed, ambition, arrogance, ignorance, and denial that drive the insanity.

Does this make me an activist? I don’t know; I am active in my desire to bend the larger trends that cause this monumental scale of suffering.

Does this make me political? I don’t know; I realize the cultural and economic changes we need will require persistent work across society.

Does this make me spiritual? I don’t know; I feel a bond with those who suffer, as did every spiritual avatar or teacher I have ever read about.

I must give back. My place of comfort and stability is a pat hand I was lucky to be dealt. The grace I have received is due equally to everyone. The world needs me. I don’t believe that is arrogance speaking, I believe it is love. I refuse to turn away, shaking my head in despair and hiding in my safe retreat. I am moved to act.

Photo by Alex Shuper on Unsplash