At the start of May (once finals were out of the way), I dove into my TBR (To Be Read) stack in a bid to put a dent in the–count them–fifty-three (53!) books I’d purchased since Quarantine began.
Don’t look at me like that.
I was trying to stimulate the economy.
…
Okay, that’s a lie.
My sister’s the economy geek-not me.
The stack of books fifty-three deep will testify that I am not, perhaps, the best with money.
What can I say?
Books make me happy, okay?
My point being, one of the first books I read was Arthur Brooks’ Love Your Enemies wherein he cites a study on political attitudes in the United States that claims “93% of the population is tired of how divided we have become as a country.”
That’s interesting.
Because if the number of people tired of the divide is so freaking high, I’m looking around and wondering, like many,
“What the heck gives, guys?”
Division and hatred is all there seems to be, and frankly, it makes me want to grab that 93%, myself included, smack them upside the head, and ask,
“Do you want to be healed?“
“You say you’re tired of division, but do you want to be healed?“
I grabbed, smacked, and asked myself that question, and it led to some really real self-reflection.
Because while the obvious answer is yes, the actual answer was much more complex.
So I’m sharing my reflections this week because as far as I can see, there are three main things keeping healing beyond our reach:
- Habituated Hopelessness
- Seeing Sickness As Good Business
- Hanging On To Hate
#1 Habituated Hopelessness
For those of you who’ve been here a while, you’ll know that I’ve been dealing with chronic sickness for a minute, and let me just say, it has taught me a thing or two about hopelessness.
I detail the particularly dark days here, but suffice to say, I am no stranger to thoughts like:
“It’s been so long. Things will always be this way.”
“There’s no way this could ever change.”
“It’s hopeless. We’ve tried that all before. There’s no point in even trying anymore.”
Sound familiar?
That was me.
Those were the kind of things I told myself for mere weeks, and they still took me to the brink.
Just to be clear.
Those kinds of thoughts do not–I repeat not–help anything.
Seriously.
Frankly, thinking that way is a fast lane to self-destructing, both in the case of the individual and in the case of a people, because when you stop believing things can get better–that you and your fellows can get better–all there’s left to do is destroy yourself and/or one another.
Hatred.
Violence.
Suicide.
All have their roots in hopelessness because all have given up on life.
It could be yours.
It could be your neighbor’s.
It could be *cough* your political opponent’s.
But the fact remains…
When you let hopelessness become your habit…
When you give it free reign…
You give up the hope that people can change.
You claim people and the situations they create will always be the same.
And if you believe that, you leave absolutely no room for grace.
All patience evaporates.
The best thing that can happen to the ones you’ve given up on is that they be razed.
Immediately.
That is where hopelessness leads, and I think we’re seeing its varied permutations swallow our society more and more everyday.
It’s honestly depressing.
Because the fact of the matter is hopelessness serves nobody in the end.
How can it?
It does not believe in change and cannot, therefore, lead to change.
Forget healing entirely.
And so, I would just say that we, as a society, must see hopelessness as the scourge that it is and be willing to hope against all hope that we might not be enemies, but friends once again.
That would at least put us back on the right track.
Which is why the people willfully stoking the fires of hate and hopelessness need a swift–and I mean swift–kick in the pants.
#2 Seeing Sickness As Good Business
I don’t know if anyone else has ever seen the TV show American Greed, but in 2016, they ran an episode that made me want to scream.
The featured crook was one Dr. Farid Fata, a Michigan oncologist who told his patients they had cancer–when they didn’t–and gave them chemotherapy, pocketing millions for himself and basically poisoning those patients needlessly.
Dr. Fata benefited handsomely from not only telling his patients they were sick–with freaking cancer no less–but also from treating them like it, making bank from prescribing expensive cancer meds.
He made a sizable chunk of change before he was found out and carted away, but there remain over 500 victims.
Some of their lives have been permanently changed.
All because of one man’s greed.
So let me ask a question:
Who are the “doctors” of our society?
Who are the people declaring us diseased?
Who are the people prescribing us things?
Are they operating like Hippocrates with “first do no harm” as a governing mentality?
Or are they Dr. Fatas?
Out for their own gain, getting rich by declaring us fatally diseased and prescribing us treatments that are damaging and extreme?
Turn on the TV and see.
I think you’ll realize what the answer is pretty quickly.
However!
Lest you think I’ve only got something against our “doctors,” I’m about to prod us “patients” too.
Because just as the avaricious doctor sees sickness as good business, so too can the pity-seeking patient.
It is sad but true that sickness can be made into a profitable tool to be used.
When I was in the fifth grade, I went on a trip to Europe. It opened my eyes to lots of things, but one particular memory really sticks out to me.
I was walking with my group down a crowded shopping street in Paris when I saw a woman sitting on the ground between two stalls.
She was an amputee–her leg was cut off at the knee.
I stared. I’d never seen anything like that before, and I couldn’t understand why people were just passing her by without so much as a glance.
She had a baby in her lap and a toddler by her side with a cup in front of her half-filled with bills and coins.
I asked my group leader for permission to go up to the stalls, and she said okay–just hurry. Don’t fall behind.
I scurried over to the woman, pulling money from my ever-fashionable fanny pack and dropping it into her cup.
She smiled and nodded her thanks, and I scurried away, rejoining the group.
Some stalls later, I noticed another woman, also an amputee, also with a cup in front of her but no baby.
Again, no one seemed to be paying her any attention.
Again, I asked for permission to approach the stalls and was given it.
Again, I hurried over, reaching into my fanny pack, only this time, I saw something different.
There was a foot poking out from behind the woman’s amputated knee, almost completely hidden by her skirts–but not totally.
I blinked, not sure what I was seeing. She noticed, looking over her shoulder and quickly rearranging her skirts before looking back at me.
I ran away, back to my group leader and told her what I’d seen.
She shook her head, and told me if she’d known I was giving my money away to gypsies, she would’ve stopped me. She said those women were probably both pretending to get money from tourists like me.
I didn’t understand.
Why would someone pretend not to have a leg?
It seemed crazy!
And yet… as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to understand the impulse quite clearly.
I mean, any person who has ever called in “sick” to work or school when you really just want to stay home–myself included–is doing essentially the same thing as the not-so footless gypsy.
Leveraging sickness–which should inspire pity–disingenuously.
In his book, The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis notes,
“Pity was meant to be a spur that drives joy to help misery. But it can be used the wrong way round. It can be used for a kind of blackmailing. Those who choose misery can hold joy up to ransom, by pity.”
Yes, indeed.
So you see, the question “Do you want to be healed?” is not just for us as a society but also for us as individuals.
And we need to get really real with ourselves.
Because even if we’re not faking–even if we’re actually “sick”–are we–in any way–seeing our sickness as good business?
If the answer is yes, get ready for the long-haul, friends, because healing will always be out of reach with that mindset.
As long as being “sick” serves our personal, political, or pecuniary interests, we will forever remain divided–the chasm will never be breached.
Because if our “doctors” want us sick and so too do we, then what are we even doing?
Seriously.
For healing to take place, both “doctors” and “patients” need to want the sickness to go away.
So do we?
#3 Hanging On To Hate
Over the last two years, I’ve racked up a pretty impressive medical bill, and let me just say, my 26th birthday (the day my parents’ health insurance no longer applies to me) is basically doomsday.
Because healing costs a pretty penny, and I’m going to have a liberal arts degree.
Pray for me.
Anyways!
My point is that healing doesn’t come cheap.
HOWEVER!
Here’s the thing.
My doctor made it very, very clear to me that I can buy all the fancy pills and prescriptions in the world, but ultimately it will be my lifestyle–my daily choices–that determine whether or not healing actually takes place.
Ergo, all the money in the world will not fix me if I continue to hang on to behaviors that are hurting me.
Well, that’s annoying.
But I think it’s a truism that applies not only to me as a sickly human being but also to our divided society.
Can you think of a destructive behavior that might be keeping healing at bay?
I can.
Hate.
In his book Prisoners of Hate, Dr. Aaron Beck notes,
“The experience of hatred is profound and intense and is probably qualitatively different from the everyday experience of anger. Once the hatred has crystallized, it is like a cold knife poised to plunge into the back of an adversary.”
He further argues that hatred leads to the homogenization (“They’re all the same”), dehumanization (“They’re a bunch of animals”), demonization (“They’re evil”), and, ultimately, the necessary extermination of one’s enemies.
With hate at the helm, it becomes your moral duty to bash your adversaries’ faces into concrete.
I would argue that that kind of thinking is not particularly conducive to healing.
Eva Mozes Kor, a Holocaust survivor who I had the privilege of meeting–not once but twice–would agree.
In her book, Surviving the Angel of Death: The True Story of a Mengele Twin in Auschwitz, she wrote,
“Anger and hate are seeds that germinate war. Forgiveness is a seed for peace. It is the ultimate act of self-healing… Forgive your worst enemy and forgive everyone else who has hurt you. It will heal your soul and set you free.”
Good grief!
If a woman who lost nearly her entire family to the Nazis and was experimented on in a death camp during the freaking Holocaust can denounce hate and exhort us to forgive our greatest enemies, then why can’t we?
Seriously.
I’m asking.
I get that hate can make us feel good, justified, righteous, holy, and all those other things for a minute–maybe even a day–but we can’t go on this way.
We are making ourselves sick with self-righteousness and bitterness, and the longer we persist like this, the more healing moves beyond our reach until it will be lost to us permanently.
We need to change course before it’s too late, so if hanging up hate is the cost of healing, are we willing to pay?
Again, I am asking.
Begging, really.
Because I want healing desperately.
For the world. For the country. For me.
So…
If you–like me–are a part of the 93% that says you’re tired of how divided we’ve become, I’d encourage you to quit being tired and start pursuing healing.
How?
I recommend starting with these:
Don’t let yourself give in to hopelessness.
Turn off the TV and press in to your community.
Love on your friends and family, even if–especially if–you disagree.
Don’t let hatred reign supreme.
Forgive your enemies.
See their humanity.
If you do all that, I can pretty much guarantee that your life will change dramatically, and while you may not think you alone can be an agent of healing, I completely disagree.
I’ve said it before–I’ll say it again!
If you think you’re too small to make a difference, you’ve clearly never slept in a room with a mosquito.
So!
Do you want to be healed?
If the answer is yes, then get after it, friend, and know that I (and hopefully 93% of the population) are running in the same direction as you.
