Well....it looks like this might be a new theme, revisiting last week's piece to apologize for and/or amend what was said in the previous week's podcast.

What I said last week that has been nagging at me, was, “This is not a dress rehearsal. This is the real deal, the life we have been given so let's try to use it to leave the world a little better than we found it.”

Well, it didn't take 5 seconds for me to know when I pushed the stop record button that I was going to need to revisit THAT statement.

I don't know about you, I don't know about the world you were born into but what I do know is that THIS one, the one we are all currently living in, is pretty much a big hot mess. And it didn't feel that way when I was growing up.

I was born in 1954 in southwest Virginia to a family of generous means. I grew up in southern California privileged and wanting for nothing. I have never known hunger, homelessness, domestic violence or substance addiction. My mom was always home after school and we were not spanked or hit by our parents. Each one of us has a different family of origin and a different 'back story' and I know those things are very important in shaping how we see the world.

So to say the world is a dumpster fire may be thought by some to be an opinion they don't share. I acknowledge that there are people who have fought hard to make it under the razor wire on the river to just get to sleep on the streets of this country hoping for something better than what they left behind. They came because they believe nothing they will ever experience here will come close to being as horrific as what they fled from their country's of origin. And I want to believe they are right.

I go back to that one morning on 9/11, the day the towers fell in NY and the Pentagon was attacked and a commercial plane full of our neighbors fell from the sky. Since that day, American soil has felt less safe. But it still felt to many of us like the place we'd rather be more than anywhere else.

Then in 2016 we somehow found ourselves with our country's highest elected official being a man who has not a single redeeming quality, not a speck of respect for anyone and not an ounce of respect for the position he held. During that presidency the world was attacked by Covid and with almost no warning at all we sheltered in place for a year. I can remember weeks of wondering what would happen and who would die. Weeks of praying that no one I loved would die. The children of our country were torn away from the stability school offers to so many of them. Parents were torn with how to manage to continue working so they could pay rent and buy groceries. I honestly believe that many of the behavioral and emotional issues we are seeing right now are a direct result of what that time did to people.

Today, I think about what it must be like for people living in active war torn areas of the planet. People who not only live every minute in fear but are also constantly assaulted by the sounds of gunfire, the taunts of captors, the cries of hungry children. At least when we hunkered in, when Covid was still so unexplained and unknown, we hunkered in, in peace. We had power and water and food. We had phones and computers and as long as we stayed away from everyone we didn't live with and never went anywhere, we were in relative safety. And I remember too that neighborhoods across the country set a time every night to call out to one another. To step out on their porch and wave to one another. In No Name we stepped outside every night at 7 and howled with our dogs and our neighbors rang bells and called out. We couldn't see anyone but we could hear them and we felt connected. Disconnection is why POW's and prison inmates find ways to tap out messages to let the others know they are still alive and still there. The comfort in not feeling completely alone keeps them going one more day.

So when I said last week “Let's try to leave the world a little better than we found it” I wasn't thinking that statement all the way through. It seems that in my lifetime this world has significantly gone from okay to no where close to okay.

BUT

If we don't try we may as well die. 

It does nothing to improve conditions for us to live in a space of only seeing the state of the planet as frightening, wrong and irreversible. 

Believing that kindness, compassion, laughter and love can improve the state of decay that has happened gets me through some rough spots. Believing that helping one another, hearing one another, touching one another with kindness when we can are all actions that improve the condition of the world.

And the world is the planet. So the compassion, love, kindness, gentle touch all pertain to Her as well as the two leggeds who roam her surface. She is fed up with the ignorant, relentless abuse of her resources. She is angry and tired. And She appears to be exploding in Her rage.

I've said this before but it is worth repeating because we need to understand it, we are the only living things on this small orb called Earth that are unnecessary for Her survival. She does not need us. For anything. And yet She has welcomed us and cared for us and provided for us. 

Ben asked me to be thinking about what I have to say in these highly charged times to comfort people, to give people hope. And maybe being comfortable has been part of the problem. It's too easy, when we are comfortable, to not look at what needs to change. On the other hand we are hearing more and more about the lack of resources for people who are suffering from depression and so called mental illness. So having something to offer people besides chicken little rhetoric is important. 

I want to believe our voices still matter in this country. That our vote still matters. That speaking up about the freedoms and values we hold most dear is still important. So vote. If you qualify, vote. Thoughtfully and with sensibility to the future of the country and the planet.

If you are of child bearing age and struggling with making informed decisions about having a baby or having another baby, think long and hard about it. It's a pretty tenuous place right now. Our rivers are drying up. Our air quality is compromised. The basic necessities to thrive like food and water are just getting more and more expensive. 

I know this is radical thinking. And I do apologize if I am leaning on anyone's nerves and I feel like we need to speak in radical terms. And all of this is just my opinion about things. We must be able to have conversations about all of this. Civilized conversations. Sharing ideas and possible solutions to some of the problems we are facing. 

Violence is almost never the answer. Yet we see it more and more every day. Fear is so often the ignitor for violence. And I think a lot of people are living in fear and scarcity which is an impossible place from which to promote hope or encouragement. 

Maybe asking ourselves, “What can I do today to make a difference in one person's life?”. Or, as we move through our day, before we tear off a paper towel or throw away something that can be recycled, asking ourselves if there is another way that might be better. It kind of goes back to that comfortable feeling. We can get lazy. Being mindful and caring for others and the environment takes more energy from us than just mindlessly throwing things away that with a little bit more effort could be re-homed or re-purposed. So many gadgets today are disposable but we are running out of places to dispose of them. Simply engaging your self talk in a more mindful way can help make a difference. 

So I guess I feel like sticking around and being who we are is what we can do. We can stick around and do what we can do to slow down the tide of what could be otherwise. We can stick around, and come together with our hope, our joy, our glad tidings, our voices, and, we can make a difference.

This is Sean Jeung. Thank you for listening and a huge thank you to all of you who have taken the time to show your support though cups of coffee. I feel like I haven't said that often enough. 

Until next time, may your lives be filled with reasons to believe in goodness.