A Response to Nice

This week the world suffered a terrible tragedy in Nice, France, which itself was one of many similar tragedies seemingly in a row. I received numerous emails and posts asking what someone can do in response, what words of wisdom are there in these hard times. This post is my response.

The first thing to do is step out of the story. Einstein said that a problem cannot be solved by the same system that caused it. The growing negativity in the world is only aided by a non-stop rehashing of it, by allowing it to crush positive efforts, to extinguish our own Light. To say “those idiots”, “those people”, to hate, all of these things put us in the same energetic space of what we want to change. It simply continues the division.

We Jews believe that peace begins at home: Shalom Bayit. If every single one of us were to create harmony within our own families (our friends, our “circle”), there would be peace in the world. An incredibly powerful response to events like Nice is to take a moment to search our own lives and find where there is a lack of harmony: Have we spent enough time with our children lately? Have we delayed a call to a parent, withheld an “I love you”, harbored a resentment or an irritation that makes our conversations curt and guarded?

I very often meet incredibly big-hearted people who are devoting their professional careers and free time to making the world better… and who themselves have a sibling they haven’t spoken to in years, a parent they resent, or a guilt they have held onto and never resolved. We have to start within our own selves and resolve our own nightmares. If we have the courage to do this, we very literally change the world.

As above, so below; as below so above. In the Jewish frame everything we do has an effect in the Greater Picture. Every single bit of Light that I can generate within myself and my personal world – my family, my friends – adds Light to the Big Light. Adding Light adds Light. Attacking something adds negative to negative.

It’s easy to be misled by the prevailing story (look back at the second paragraph). The story today says that I have to see an immediate result for change to have occurred, that the mighty win, that more firepower is needed, that if something is “bad” it must be eliminated, crushed, defeated. Another story today says that the more informed I am the more I am “doing something”, creating a million posts and forwards and reading blog after blog and newspaper after newspaper which only adds to the spin. Stepping out of story is to step into a space of quiet where something new can happen. To step out of the system that caused it, and create the possibility for a new system to emerge.

How many stopped to pray or meditate upon hearing the news, or how many instead jumped on Facebook?

We are all, each, more powerful than we know. Using our powerful energy to heal a hurt within our own lives, within our own family, creates a monumental difference in the world. In the face of these tragedies, a very powerful response is to stop, pray, meditate. Then search for where disharmony, discord, division exists in our own lives and take a bold step to bridge it.

If each of us becomes a bridge we can cross over to something new. It is in doing this that we solve the nightmare problems of our waking lives.

Happy dreaming,

Bonnie