I was talking with a friend who was not having a very good day. She had exposed herself to too much news, too many television commercials, and a few poorly designed documentaries about things like Nostradamus and the year 2012. She was contemplating terrorism, nuclear war, global warming, tidal waves, floods, plagues, rogue asteroids, volcanoes and solar flares which, she informed me, could flip the magnetic poles and turn the earth upside down.
It’s hard to lift someone from such a funk, isn’t it? Perhaps this is because we all get wrapped up in such a state of mind from time to time and we all know, from our own reflections, that happy answers are hard to come by. When we do find them, they seem trite and unconvincing. And for every answer, there are a dozen more problems to be found.
An understanding of world history can be a comfort. At no time in human history has the threat of a global apocalypse been more than a few years away. From the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, right up to this very day, the threat of world-wide destruction has always been very real to the people of each time period.
Certainly with hindsight we can say that the Elizabethans were probably mistaken in their belief that the Spanish Armada could have ever meant the end of the world. At the time, however, through their perspective, the threat of world extinction did appear to be very real – no less so than those contemplating global warming, plagues, or nuclear terrorists today.
That fact that life has appeared on this planet at all seems to be, simply, incredible. Just the right temperatures, just the right elements, all put together in just the right way… it is too much to contemplate for such a puny mind as mine. And yet, here we are.
Fortunately on this particular day, we were able to pause in our stroll, and she took a breath from her worries in a place that was no less than poetic.
“No matter the ways life can be easily destroyed,” I was able to say, “life itself is also a power not to be discounted.” I pointed at a single dandelion, which had emerged in the most unlikely of places, prodding its way from a hairline crack in a slab of cement in the sidewalk. “Life is in insuppressible.”
It is difficult to never get wrapped up in such worries for our planet. The threats are numerous, and the dangers are great. However, we are also surrounded by such reminders that life is a formidable force itself. To try to deny the insuppressible nature of life in the face of impossible odds is to try to deny that you yourself, in this moment, could ever exist. Yet, here you are.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
~ Hamlet, Act I, Scene 5
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Well written. I like to say “life is tenacious” and am reminded of this every time I see a tree that has been radically trimmed by someone (usually in the name of fire prevention), and then new shoots emerge. The tree is Alive. It has a life force that is Strong. It will keep trying. And I say Be Well, Tree.
“Life is tenacious.” Well said! I might just switch over to that.
Be Well, Kathy.
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