Cynics say that positive thinking in the Trump era is equivalent to being in denial or suffering a psychiatric condition called magic thinking. Take heart, it’s not so.

The trick I’ve learned is not to read the papers or visit any other media for at least two hours after rising; the longer the better. Then I have an untroubled look at the sunrise, listening to the early birds flitting about while I savor that first cup of coffee. With an untroubled mind I can think about just how I want to go about my day.

Another strategy to maintain equanimity is to think contextually, that is, keep an eye on the big picture. Beauty is often revealed by its surrounding space, as Anne Morrow Lindbergh once observed about the shells she saw on a beach.

February is a case in point.

I’ve always regarded February as a blah month – cold and wet and dreary. But, taking the long look I now see it differently. Consider this: February 14th is Valentines Day. February 17th is Random Acts of Kindness Day. It’s also American Heart Month as well as Black History Month. The only downer is that February includes Presidents’ Day. Recently it’s felt more like a wake than a celebration. Still, my challenge is to remain positive, look for the silver lining in the darkest cloud, and don’t resort to keeping my head in the sand.

Valentines Day was especially rewarding this year because I remembered it on my own. I was the first to initiate a congratulatory kiss and tell my wife I loved her. I know she welcomed it, but I saw fleeting skepticism in her eyes. She may have been surprised that I remembered. She made the attached card for me.

February 17th is Random Acts of Kindness Day. Then I was still on holiday in Puerto Rico. Like many privileged Yankees I stay at a resort where some of the heart-rending poverty remains invisible. In many ways it’s an alternative universe, and if I ever had any illusions about inequality, being on the streets of Humacao as well as on the streets of our own capitol, they are quickly dispelled.

When I first arrived, I had occasion to leave the resort to buy supplies in Humacao. At a light I was approached, one after the other, by no less that four indigent men. Each held a plastic cup in his hand.

Their appearance betrayed desperate need. As each approached, I realized I only had twenties in my wallet and had made no provision for this. As they moved their cups in my direction I shrugged my shoulders and they passed me. The men betrayed no apparent anger or judgment. I believe I saw in their eyes a silent resignation, the blank stare of hopelessness. Having heard of a man in New York who did this, I elected to be sure next time when I left the house I’d be prepared to give each a dollar. This probably made no difference in their plight, but out of guilt and compassion I felt a need to at least act, to take their plight seriously enough to acknowledge it. Each time I gave, I had an odd feeling. I think it reduced that sense of guilt that goes with privilege, but the other feeling seemed different. As we momentarily looked each other in the eye I noticed I felt less alienated and more aware. This was a stranger whom I met only once and probably would never see again. The feeling was faintly reminiscent of a sense of belonging, that both of us were connected in a fundamental way – children of God. Moments like this make me appreciate the exercise of compassion – and the organizational commitment – that Julie Lowe and the volunteers of the Talbot Interfaith Shelter have created. Random acts of kindness are good as far as they go. Compassionate acts inspired by committed and accountable people is goodness at it’s best.

During February we celebrate Black History month, usually emphsizing the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr. Like Gandhi, Dr. King showed the world a more excellent way. I continue to be awed by the care and planning that the early civil right activists practiced. It was as disciplined as boot camp, giving as much thought and respect to adversaries as to advocates. The movement was one example of not only the power of goodness and personal sacrifice to reach the human heart, but to also change oppressive social structures. Social revolutions are notoriously bloody. The civil rights movement had casualties – King himself – but his life and mission changed the world in a remarkably bloodless way.

February is also American Heart Month. Our hearts are our most loyal supporters and our closest friends. We can’t live without one. They have an awesome responsibility and even when they suffer malfunctions, with the right treatment, they keep on truckin’. Try this on for size: In a seventy-two year life span, a heart beats approximately 2,800,000,000 times. Of our other organic functions, our breath comes in behind the heart but still at a whopping 530,156,808 breaths. In times of erotic excitement and especially during presidential campaigns both numbers may increase substantially.

This brings us finally to February 20th, which is Presidents Day this year. It’s usually a celebration, but this year I think confusion abounds in the White House and President Trump seems angry all the time about one thing or another. I haven’t found this President’s Day as festive as last year when President Obama was in office. He was fun, articulate, with a sense of humor, even self-deprecating humor – “I’m the guy with the big ears,” he’d say. President Obama seemed to really care for us, as though he held in his heart the people he was elected to serve.

Oops! See, I’ve done it, dumping on Trump again, right into the negativity I’m encouraging us to rise above. Well, getting back on task I count as a blessing that Vladimir Putin didn’t become our 45th President.

Take heart, friends. Count your blessings, however modest. It promotes warm hearts and fewer visits to your cardiologist.

Columnist George Merrill is an Episcopal Church priest and pastoral psychotherapist. A writer and photographer, he’s authored two books on spirituality: Reflections: Psychological and Spiritual Images of the Heart and The Bay of the Mother of God: A Yankee Discovers the Chesapeake Bay. He is a native New Yorker, previously directing counseling services in Hartford, Connecticut, and in Baltimore. George’s essays, some award winning, have appeared in regional magazines and are broadcast twice monthly on Delmarva Public Radio.

In ancient times, in the Middle East, a man once sat near his tent in an area not far from a village called Mamre. His wife remained in the tent attending to chores. He saw three strangers approaching. He rose, ran to them, welcomed them, bowed to them in respect and offered them his hospitality. He washed their feet (a gesture of welcome of nomadic peoples) offered them bread to eat and water to drink. His actions were guided by a prevailing custom, which obliged him to offer hospitality and protection to aliens and strangers.

He took and slaughtered one of his calves and prepared a feast for the three guests. When it was time for them to leave, the story goes, he went with them a distance “to see them safely on their way.”

This is one of the myths of the legendary Abraham and Sarah who appear in Islamic, Judaic and Christian scriptures. By all accounts we have a picture of a man and his wife, people of privilege and power offering hospitality and protection to the potentially weak and vulnerable – in this case to three men who appeared as strangers in their midst.

Last Friday, the President of the United States signed a directive closing the nation to refugees and people from “certain predominantly Muslim countries.” Immigrants were turned away, with no preparations or forethought apparently given to how appropriate authorities would ‘see them on their way.’ The directive created unimaginable suffering for millions of people – all of whom wished us nothing but affection and admiration for what we stood for – a just and welcoming space. I was deeply saddened when I read about it.

The supreme irony is that the practice of hospitality was an ingrained spiritual tradition in many of those same countries that now seek refuge and sanctuary here.

There are darker implications to the recent executive directive. In this action, I believe our present leadership violated one of America’s fundamental moral foundations. The operative myth that has made America unique and distinct in its greatness is its commitment to hospitality.

We live by myths. Campaign slogans are myths. Our most beloved religious stories and symbols are myths. This is not to suggest they are only “make believe or fanciful.” They may be, but do not need to be historically verifiable to be powerfully motivating. To be viable they only need to speak to some deep human yearning. In the myth of Abraham and Sarah, we see the deep and universal human need to care for others, in short, to offer hospitality to strangers.

Two symbols represent our national myths; the eagle and the Statue of Liberty. The eagle represents nobility and strength, the alpha bird if you will. It tells the world that America is strong. It feels good to be strong. The eagle is, however, a predator. Eagles are also kissing cousins to buzzards.

The Statue of Liberty, our greatest national landmark, was conceived in grace. It was given to America by the French in gratitude for our supporting their struggles for equality and justice. For us, she has become the iconic symbol, not of America’s might, but of America’s caring. The gift was given in gratitude, one of the most profound feelings we have as human beings.

What’s disturbing is that the symbol of America’s true greatness with it’s long and venerable history of hospitality to the stranger, might soon become more like the guard stationed at the entrance to a gated community; admitting members only. I recently saw a picture on the side of a pickup truck with a picture of Lady Liberty on the cab door. In her arms she’s holding an AK 47.
This portrays the statue more as an armed guard than a hostess welcoming “your tired and your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free.”

The highest task imparted to us as human beings is to care for one another. It is not some kind of legal imperative, but more a recognition that we belong to that interdependent web of life that is woven into who we are and has consequences in what we do.
The story of Abraham and his guests is instructive from another point of view. We can assume that he is a man of means, with resources. Even if he were not wealthy, the same call to hospitality was a spiritual value that would be as incumbent on him as it would be for the privileged.

The substance of spiritual matters is reflected more subtly than say, closing a deal.

What characterized the recent executive order banning immigrants was its ‘slapdash” quality. Many, including the Secretary of Homeland Security were just learning of the order as it was being signed. The people in government agencies that would have the responsibility for carrying out the directive, “to see them on their way,” were largely blindsided which led to scrambling and confusion, only aggravating the predictable suffering for all involved.

In the spiritual nature of life, awareness is critical. It’s expressed in the attention one gives in the way we treat others in our routine or extraordinary transactions with them. Careless and off-handed treatment of others suggests that there’s little awareness and care or feeling for the other.

There’s one other irony in these developments. Of all the countries being impacted by the present migrations, America’s space, wealth and privilege position her to be compassionate with far less impact to her than countries with fewer resources.

To whom much has been given, much is required.

Columnist George Merrill is an Episcopal Church priest and pastoral psychotherapist. A writer and photographer, he’s authored two books on spirituality: Reflections: Psychological and Spiritual Images of the Heart and The Bay of the Mother of God: A Yankee Discovers the Chesapeake Bay. He is a native New Yorker, previously directing counseling services in Hartford, Connecticut, and in Baltimore. George’s essays, some award winning, have appeared in regional magazines and are broadcast twice monthly on Delmarva Public Radio.

My wife, Jo, has dragged me kicking and screaming into the electronic age. I can almost manage Facebook and survive fatal errors. I’ve learned what a blog is. I can text, albeit at a painfully slow pace and, although I will never be a truly renaissance man of the postmodern era, at least I can get messages and compose on the computer.

One of the marvelous gifts of electronic communication is its capacity to offer talks by informed people. I can listen to the wise and learned as they share their wisdom with me. Just the other day I listened to a clip where Krista Tippett (recently at the Avon Theater in Easton) was interviewing Rabbi Rachel Naomi Remen, a remarkable woman, and one of many I am hopeful will spiritually feed and guide more of us as we make our way in this increasingly uncertain world.

Rabbi Rachel Remen, MD, Clinical professor of Family and Community Medicine at U.C.S.F. has a vision. She relates a story as told by her grandfather. It’s a myth with deep roots in Jewish spiritual wisdom that I believe has profound healing qualities especially for this time. In her pioneering work in Holistic and Integrative medicine, while suffering herself with Crohn’s disease for sixty years, she’s no stranger to suffering or to the mystery of healing. She is wise in the art of living wholly (holy) in the midst of brokenness – which, for all of us, is life’s primary task.

She relates her grandfather’s story, a pivotal myth that has guided her along her spiritual path of healing that she’s trod during her life. Like all inspired myths, it reveals truth without artifice, in such an ingenuous way that it touches the heart and soul deeply. She offers a vision of hope for healing in this broken world. As I heard the story for the first time, I understood more clearly the ancient psalm that speaks of “the beauty of holiness.” The story goes as follows:

“In the beginning, there was only the holy darkness, the Ein Sof, the source of life. And then…at a moment in time, this world, the world of a thousand, thousand things, emerged from the heart of the holy darkness as a great ray of light. The vessels containing the light of the world, the wholeness of the world, broke. The wholeness and light…was scattered into a thousands of fragments of light, and they fell into all events and all people, where they remain deeply hidden until this very day.

“Now, according to my grandfather, the whole human race is a response to this accident. We are here because we are born with the capacity to find the hidden light in all events and all people, to lift it up and make it visible once again and thereby to restore the innate wholeness of the world. It’s a very important story for our times. And this task is called tikkun olam in Hebrew, the restoration of the world. And this is a collective task. It involves all people who have ever been born, all people presently alive, all people yet to be born. We are all healers of the world. And that story opens a sense of possibility. Not making a huge difference, only healing the world that touches me and is around me.”

I read of a man who lived in Greenwich and commuted daily to the financial district in New York. No sooner out of the train and he’d meet on a few corners men and women begging for change. It’s a fixture in most big cities. It bothered him. He decided that each day when he left for the city he’d take ten dollars in singles. When asked, “Can you help me out,” he’d say yes and give the person a dollar. When the sum for that day had been given it was enough but he did the same the next day and the next.
His story came up at a dinner party. A couple of people suggested that while he meant well they gently chided him saying if he was serious he might do much more and concluded that this tiny gesture would do no good; “They’ll just buy drugs or alcohol” was the prevailing sentiment.
I saw the scenario differently. The issue wasn’t what the needy might do with the money, or even how significantly it would address their plight, but that he in some small way attempted to meet these people not “making a huge difference,” but reaching out to those in his world that touched him and that gathered around him every morning on his way to work. I was moved by how, when he became aware of the deprivation that faced him daily, he felt overwhelmed like most of us do, but became intentional and committed about addressing it at least in some small way.

Acts of kindness and compassion can be trivialized, as they don’t at first “make a huge difference.” However, they set into motion unexpected consequences that potentially mobilize all kinds of healing, social, physical and spiritual. The good news in the Rabbi’s grandfather’s story is, that from the beginning, we – each one of us – has been assigned the task of healing the world, a tiny bit at a time.

Keep an eye peeled for signs of inner light.

I wrote this piece during the inauguration on Friday while just outside my window I could hear the gentle and plaintive cooing of a mourning dove.

Columnist George Merrill is an Episcopal Church priest and pastoral psychotherapist.  A writer and photographer, he’s authored two books on spirituality: Reflections: Psychological and Spiritual Images of the Heart and The Bay of the Mother of God: A Yankee Discovers the Chesapeake Bay. He is a native New Yorker, previously directing counseling services in Hartford, Connecticut, and in Baltimore. George’s essays, some award winning, have appeared in regional magazines and are broadcast twice monthly on Delmarva Public Radio.

Years ago, I remember how the minister began the Morning Prayer service by saying, “The Lord is in his holy temple; let the whole earth keep silence before him.” Then, for the next hour, sounds of every sort would reign non-stop: there’d be prayers, chants, a sermon, hymns and anthems. This list does not include the audible whispering that congregants engage in throughout the service. Nor does it mention the announcements, which, depending on what’s going on in the parish can be extensive. So many different sounds can seem dissonant; they lack the harmonic concord of a unified melody. Where silence is concerned, we talk a good game and that’s the problem . . . we just can’t seem to be still . . . even in the hallowed halls of the Almighty.

With regard to space, it goes in a similar way. Part of the beauty and wonder that explorers Cabot, Hudson and Verrazano wrote of when discovering the New World was its open and unencumbered spaces. It was openness that allowed luxuriant flora to thrive. In four hundred years humans have filled the space with the marvels and the effluence of engineering. Many of the plants and trees are extinct as a result – while the few remaining plants, flowers and trees survive by growing in highway medians. These are born to blush unseen and waste their sweetness on rush hour commuters who will never see or smell them.

It’s not nature that abhors vacuums; we do.

We are driven to fill silence with sound, and clutter space with stuff. My guess is that it’s because we are still at the adolescent stage of our evolution as a species. Most adolescents’ bedrooms are the ultimate showcases for litter of all descriptions. When ordered to tidy up, all the clothes on the floor go in the washing machine along with hamburger, gum and candy wrappers. In adolescence, my room was a mess. So were my children’s. It’s clutter from wall to wall and when the kids played music, it was loud enough to rattle the china in the cupboard downstairs.

Since I’m more respectful of space as I’ve grown older and try not to clutter, I also play music more softly. This change has given me hope for mankind’s future. Like wine, we can mellow with age.

A huge meteor hurdles through space intact and at dizzying speeds, all in silence. When it reaches the earth’s atmosphere, it slows down and begins disintegrating while emitting sound for the first time. Beyond the earths atmosphere it travels silently. What’s more astonishing is how even exploding or imploding stars in our galaxies, with forces hundreds or thousands of times greater than our home made atomic concoctions, are born and die in unimaginable conflagrations without so much as a peep. I’ve thought perhaps when a meteor gets too close to the earth, our planetary noise level makes it go to pieces. We call it atmosphere.

There’s power in silence. There’s healing as well, since we must first be still in order to hear. I have experienced how listening is an instrument of healing. Sometimes the most troubled soul, when he or she knows they’ve been heard, feels momentarily at peace.

I’ve walked many state parks. Sometimes I was lucky enough to be sufficiently distant from highway noise to enjoy solitude. Jets passing overhead quickly reminded me that finding silence is a significant challenge.

There are two places I believe where there’s infinite space and also stillness: in the universe and in our souls. They enjoy similar characteristics.

Two writers I’ve read ponder space and silence in similar ways. Anne Morrow Lindbergh once wrote of space: “For it is only framed in space that beauty blooms . . . and objects and people are unique and significant – and therefore beautiful.” The moon gains radiance because the sky it occupies is black – and it orbits in plenty of space. Chet Raymo writing about the mystery of silence: “A note in music gains significance from the silence on either side . . . only in relation to silence does sound have significance.”

In an age dominated by technology, our hearts suffer an inadequate vocabulary to articulate the spiritual riches of our souls if we even knew they were there. We are constantly bombarded with information. There’s never enough time and mental space to process it. In short, we’ve lost the art of interior reflection. We’re driven by sound bytes of dubious credibility and our endless busyness.

It was such a lovely day, I left off writing this essay to walk for a while. The day was cold and clear with a fierce wind blowing. The trees swayed ecstatically and the slate gray underbelly of the passing clouds accented the white of their crowns. The sky was deep blue, setting the clouds in sharp relief. As the sun dropped lower, the underbelly of the clouds turned orange as though kindled by fire.

As I walked, for a moment I had this silly thought; that the universe had broken it’s silence for me long enough to reveal itself in a muffled rush of wind and by displaying its glory in a space as big as all eternity.

Columnist George Merrill is an Episcopal Church priest and pastoral psychotherapist.  A writer and photographer, he’s authored two books on spirituality: Reflections: Psychological and Spiritual Images of the Heart and The Bay of the Mother of God: A Yankee Discovers the Chesapeake Bay. He is a native New Yorker, previously directing counseling services in Hartford, Connecticut, and in Baltimore. George’s essays, some award winning, have appeared in regional magazines and are broadcast twice monthly on Delmarva Public Radio.

Enthusiasts of Tchaikovsky’s haunting melodies will be familiar with his classic, “None but the Lonely Heart.” The title, however, comes from a poem Goethe wrote. The German reads, “Nur wer die sehnsuch kennt,” which translates literally, “Only those who know the longing.” I strongly suspect we’ve all felt this longing, but didn’t know what to make of it. The feeling is unlike anything else.

Have you ever felt such a longing, a persistent and inexplicable yearning that seems to have no clear origin?

I’ve experienced it as a mood that comes and goes and feels like a deep huger for something I cannot quite put my finger on. Then, I see or hear of a particular happening that’s filled with grace and beauty and I’m suddenly moved to tears – not tears of sorrow or sadness, but the tears that release a latent joy that has been hidden from me deep down within my own heart. Yes, you say to myself, that’s it, that’s what sates this hunger of mine, something innately good and filled with love and grace.

This past year capped one of the darker eras in our national life. Over the last several years, hate and ugliness seemed to be insidiously growing like a malignant tumor in our national and world body. It was slowly disfiguring many of our treasured ideals. One ideal suffering disfigurement was that it made no difference anymore how anyone played the game, but only that they won it. Losers didn’t matter. They were non-persons. We stood by and watched, as our values were regularly devalued.

The year culminated in an atmosphere characterized by mean-spiritedness and flagrant amorality. But out of the crucible of the most unimaginable suffering in these last few years, there arose periodic intimations of that sublime beauty. We are finding that noble and grace-filled spark that burns in the human spirit – the image of God – still glows. Even in these troubled years we saw the evidence with our own eyes how love can conquer hate. In two instances the glow manifested itself in the suffering of the African American community in Charlottesville, North Carolina and the Amish community in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

In June of 2015, Dylann Roof entered a church in Charleston, South Carolina, where nine parishioners were engaged in a Bible study – he shot them. That’s the ugly and hateful piece of the story. There’s another story. It’s different. During Roof’s bond hearing, several family members of the victims who attended said that they forgave him. The transformational quality of grace and goodness are perhaps one of the oldest miracles of our species. How do they do it, I wonder; would I be strong enough if I were in their circumstances?

Like butterflies these moments of deeper spiritual manifestations suddenly appear. Their beauty stuns us. Such moments are fragile and soon they are gone and forgotten. But like the butterflies’ wings, as fragile as they seem, will transport them across continents. I want such moments of grace to remain, to bring a continuing joy and hope into my life. The experience of grace and goodness is often transient, but it leaves in the corridors of memory something grand and noble, the knowing of something essentially good. Having once beheld it and felt its benign power, I want it to hold onto it always; I want all of us to have it – always.

Ten years ago, ten Amish schoolchildren were shot while in their one room schoolhouse. In the midst of their grief the Amish community did not blame, point fingers, and get lawyers – they reached out with grace and compassion toward the killer’s family. They visited the killer’s family to console them.

Again the power of grace and moral beauty to heal and reconcile is an awesome phenomenon to behold. It’s miraculous. How does goodness survive in the fetid fields of violence in which we grow? How can flowers bloom in an arid desert? They find a way and therein rests our hope.

I see little evidence that the antagonistic climate that has seized the country since the election will change that much. It places the burden on people of good will – on those who know the longing – to cultivate, in the small worlds in which each of us lives and has influence, the spirit of grace and goodness. ‘Walk in the light that you have,’ the old inspirational message urges us. That light is all that guides us when all other lights are extinguished.

Some hostilities and divisions remain so intractable as to seem irreconcilable. None more so than the Israeli – Palestinian conflict that only recently has reemerged to threaten the world.

There’s a story I once read about a handful of Israeli mothers that for a while, sated that longing in my heart. It’s a soul story, something essentially good and grace-filled. I think these women knew the longing.

At a checkpoint in Israel, Israeli guards were posted to monitor entering and exiting Palestinians. The tension for the soldiers was as stressful as it was for Palestinian citizens. This led some guards to treat Palestinians aggressively that in turn led the Palestinians to feel hostile and more victimized.

A group of women – Israeli mothers – banded together to undertake the task of monitoring the behavior of the guards, a few of whom were the mothers of the soldiers. When the guards gave evidence of not treating the Palestinians with basic courtesy, the particular mother assigned to monitor the guard would scold him. The legendary power of Jewish mothers to intimidate their sons became a profoundly humane, even a divine gesture, which maintained the integrity of the guards while securing a measure of dignity for entering and exiting Palestinians. It allowed neighbors to at least pass by one another without causing rancor.

No, the gesture didn’t resolve the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. It helped the few whose live it touched to walk in the light. They knew about the longing.
Heed the longing when it comes. Listen to its music. It has messages for us.

Columnist George Merrill is an Episcopal Church priest and pastoral psychotherapist. A writer and photographer, he’s authored two books on spirituality: Reflections: Psychological and Spiritual Images of the Heart and The Bay of the Mother of God: A Yankee Discovers the Chesapeake Bay. He is a native New Yorker, previously directing counseling services in Hartford, Connecticut, and in Baltimore. George’s essays, some award winning, have appeared in regional magazines and are broadcast twice monthly on Delmarva Public Radio.