The Freedom of a Boundless Love

Depression and anxiety abound these days, people struggling to find their emotional footing in the midst of chaos and conflict.

People are so depressed because they can feel that something is falling apart, and they are right. Our democracy is on the brink, as much so as at any time in America’s history. Our environment is in peril, needlessly so, for no other reason than greed and corruption at the highest levels of our politics and economy. We continue to feed a gargantuan war machine that has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people around the world, but can’t really tell you why and can’t even claim that we or anyone else in the world is safer because of it. Huge corporations poison our food, our air, and our water because it saves them money to do so. And our government has become little more than a system of legalized bribery.

What kind of person would not be depressed about that? Sometimes our anguish is a sign of mental health! Just as the brain registers pain when the body is wounded, so the psyche registers pain when the soul is wounded. And these are soul-wounding times. We have behaved as a nation in ways that are deeply contrary to the dictates of love, and righteousness, and reverence or devotion to anything other than the almighty dollar. And we can feel the karmic tsunami that’s now upon us. Free will means you can do whatever you want to do, but at a certain point if what you’re doing is too contrary to the will of nature then it will simply stop working.

Unfettered, soulless capitalism; political corruption; and a variety of social dysfunctions have taken us to a point where a little tweaking here or there is not going to fix it. We need radical renewal, and no one is going to bring it forth except ourselves.

I know many people say, “But I’m exhausted,” “We’ve tried so hard, and nothing’s working,” “The system has it all locked up,” and so forth. All of which are legitimate complaints. But they only hold water if you do not believe in miracles. And I do.

Miracles are possible because in the presence of love they occur naturally. There is a portal of infinite possibility that is available to us even now, if we make ourselves receptive to the infinite wisdom that lies within each and every heart. All that matters is that at least we try. There is an old rabbinical saying: “You are not expected to complete the task, but neither are you permitted to abandon it.”

Each and every one of us carries the seeds of a newborn world. Just as the acorn is programmed to become the oak tree, so we are programmed to become so much more than we have ever dreamed of being. Now, at this critical time in the world, being who have been will not be enough. We must commit ourselves to the cause of greatness. We must repudiate the emotional gravity that would have us give up. We must not give up. Not now. Not ever.

As much darkness and pain as there is around us, there is infinite light inside our hearts. And it will lead us through these perilous times to a different kind of world.

Dear God,

In moments when we feel depressed,

When waves of anxiety come over us

and we are too weighed down to fight them,

When the burden of our life feels too great to overcome,

Show us the path, dear God,

that leads us

from fear to love,

from darkness to light,

and pain to peace.

Change us, that we might change the world.

Open our hearts and expand our minds,

for surely miracles will follow.

Release us from the bondage of self

to the freedom of a boundless love.

Amen