Footholds

Most of the time we are preoccupied with the daily tasks of life. We go to work, drop our kids off at school, and think about a myriad of tasks and responsibilities. If we have time to ourselves, we usually find distractions, scrolling through social media, news posts, or watching a show. We long for downtime, but settle for distraction. Why? Why do we fear idle time? Because it is a dangerous time. A time to be totally alone in our thoughts. A time to face ourselves and reflect on who we are (or who we are not). We have an existential angst which comes to the surface when we are alone.

We are living beings, intelligent enough to be self-aware, who are aware of our own agency and actions. Mere survival is not enough. Because we have agency, we have a gift, but it is a double-edge sword. We can spiral into ourselves. To avoid this existential plunge into the abyss, we must grab footholds. What are these footholds?

Thankfulness We must recognize our circumstances and benefactors. We must understand that others have poured into us. Parents, teachers, and mentors. We did not, nor could we have, raised ourselves. The moment we think we are self-made, that the world owes us, is the moment we spiral into narcissism, a gateway to the abyss.

Own Our Decisions  We make decisions that have consequences. Some decisions will further our success, while others will lead to failure. We must own our decisions. The moment we start blaming others for our failures is the moment we begin spiraling into perdition.

Face Our Losses  We will all experience gain and loss in life. We will lose places and people. It is an inevitable part of the human experience. We must face those losses and grieve them. But we must not remain mired in grief. We must again face the world with its risks and joys. If we remain withdrawn from the world, we spiral into darkness.

Be Fully Present  We must be fully present to those around us. If we live in the past or in the future, then we are not here, in the present. As a result the people around us become irrelevant, a void in time. String these empty, distracted moments together and they become a continuous void, a path into the abyss.

"So many people have this idea: I want to achieve something great or be somebody great. And they neglect the step that leads to greatness. They don't honor this step at this moment because they have this idea of some future moment where they are going to be great." -Eckhart Tolle

Service/Care for Others  We must care for those around us. When we care for others, we illuminate our souls. If we harden our hearts, ignoring the needs of those around us, we find another path in the abyss.

“Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person”. -Tennessee Williams

Redemption   Redemption allows us to see and reclaim value in disappointments, bad experiences, human weakness, pain, and grief.

"Nothing [no life experience] is wasted" - Patrick Stewart

A redemptive view reclaims value out of what others consider a loss. The only alternative to a redemptive view is a dark nihilism and that is another path into the abyss.

Faith  Too many of us believe we can live without faith in something (or someone) outside ourselves. It seems fashionable these days to live life with no regard for the infinite or eternal.

 “I realized that no one lives without faith, not even the strictest rationalist”- Tolstoy

As a result, the moral elements of religious teaching have been discarded. The Torah teaches that we were made "Image of God". The Catholic Church teaches that human life is sacred and that the "dignity of the human person" is the foundation of a moral vision for society. A purely materialist view is "survival of the fittest" and as we have seen recently and in history, this is a path into the abyss.

Help  We will need help to find these footholds. Recently, solo climbing of Mt Everest was banned because too many people were dying in the attempt to go it alone. The same is true with us. We need help. We need each other, not just at the beginning of our lives, nor at the end, but all along the way. Let's be humble enough and brave enough to reach out for help when we need it and let's be equally humble and generous to provide the help, to be that foothold that someone else is desperately  looking for. 

A Hundred Years

Aleksandr Ogonowski
August 25 1914 - March 15, 1995

On this day one hundred years ago, my father was born in Rzeszów in the Galicia province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. World War I was just getting started. Four years later the Armistice was declared and Rzeszów would be part of a newly independent Poland. My father grew up during the next twenty years, did his time in the military, and returned to civilian life. In August 1939 he had just turned 25.

On September 1, 1939 Nazi troops began the invasion of Poland. Seventeen days later, the Soviets invaded from the east. To avoid capture he made a run for the Romanian border. On one occasion,  he recalled laying in the ditch by side of the road as planes strafed those fleeing. He felt the repeated thump of machine gun bullets impacting the ground. After the planes left and he felt it was safe to get up,  he arose to discover every other person in the ditch was dead. He just happened to be in the place that was between rounds.

He made it to Romania, then to Athens, Greece. At Piraeus he boarded a ship to Marseilles, France and then made his way up to Paris. He remained in Paris a while, employed as an aircraft machinist. When France was invaded, he had to flee again. He rode his bike to the coast and boarded a ship bound for England. Because of  the ever-present danger of U-boats, the ship took a circuitous route to England and remained at sea for days. The was no food on board. All he had to eat was a sandwich shared with him by a married couple.

He survived the voyage and made it to London. His skills quickly landed him a job in the aircraft industry. Unfortunately, aircraft manufacturing was a principle target of Nazi bombing. As a result, his company moved the operation to Canada. He then emigrated to the US, got married, had children, and now I am here....one hundred years after my father was born.

A hundred years is a long time.  It is a full century of human history. When my dad was born, tanks were just being introduced; horse-drawn artillery was still the norm. Planes were fabric-covered wooden-framed bi-planes. Radio communication was by Morse-code. Voice telephone was in its infancy.  But decisions were being made. Decisions whose consequences are still unfolding today.

For the most part, I have been lucky. My decisions were not made under duress. Yes they were pivotal, such as whom I would marry and whether I would have children. But they were not forced decisions. On the other hand, history forced decisions on my father. Two armies invaded his country....should he stay or flee? If he had not decided to flee, you would not be reading this story. Had he stayed, he would have almost certainly perished, if not in battle, then in a mass-execution in the woods. My existence is the consequence of decisions that were made at definite points in history, a hundred and one years ago, seventy five years ago, and fifty nine years ago.

So here I am today, one hundred years after his birth. My life going forward will be the product of my decisions, the decisions of others, and circumstances over which I have no control. I will pray that the circumstances over which I have no control, I will respond to with grace. When I do come to the "forks in the road", the points of decision, I will pray that my decisions will "tip the scales towards the good" as Maimonides put it. I believe that the little acts of cruelty and the little acts of kindness multiply over time. Of all the stories my father told me, the story of fellow refugees sharing their sandwich with him is the one I remember most vividly.