Hurting

Today the skies are blue and the temperature sits at 65 degrees fahrenheit. Today is Saturday.

Last week a lifeless bird was in the street. It had been hit or caught by another animal - human or not - and tossed to the side of the street. Probably there wasn't enough time between the blow and the end, a quick ending and not much time for the hurt to be turned into suffering.

Then, the thought came: this is life (and death). Things happen, sometimes not sure from where the events arise, but we encounter the fact of life and death all the time. If we are fortunate, there is less suffering as we live and yet, it is that very thing - the hurting, the struggle to live, the ability to recover - that is what life seems to offer all of us. And how we move through that series of changes that just keep coming - is what makes each of us unique unto ourselves.

Some of the hurting in the world is avoidable - choices can be made about whether to do or not do something; whether to say or not say something; whether to think or not think something about what may be happening in our lives. Then there are hurts that are unavoidable because, as they say, "things happen.". And those events are not usually out of a choice or conscious choice, anyway. They are the unwelcome surprises that all of us encounter just by being around.

If fortuate, you have a way to move through those situations where the struggle is unavoidable and the only thing to do is move one step at a time. We all have those moments. The things we have to work with as the raw material of living require us sometimes to just wait. We don't have an answer, we don't have the tools, we don't even know what we might do if we did have an answer or the right skills or resources. As a result, many people plan for the risks that we face in life – to avoid hurting.

But there isn't an insurance policy that covers broken dreams, broken hearts, broken expectations related to how life will unfold. What is the next best thing?

That would be community, people and conditions that nourish, support, and accept without judgment the fact that fallibility is part of being alive. Then, of course, there is karma. Where does that fit into the picture? Well, it is all over our existence. Cause and effect is part of the fundamental nature of existence. And sometimes the effect is hurtful.

The world is hurting just about now. Wherever we look, we can see the things that cause the pain: aging, disease, poverty, slow dying in the midst of clear potential to ease all of the hurt that flows from these. We haven't yet made the choice to stop the hurting. When will we realize that there is something each of us can do?