Thanks, Episode 82

 

Even in the darkest of situations can we find a way to be joyful? Is there a kind of gratitude which isn't a turning away from the gravity of things? Might just this joy and gratitude be what's called for if we're to face our situation with sufficient energy, creativity and ethical care?

Here's Episode 82 of Turning Towards Life, a weekly live 30 minute conversation hosted by Thirdspace in which Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn dive deep into big questions of human living.

Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. We're also on YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google and Spotify.

In this conversation we talk together about how it might be possible to face the darkness and difficulties of the world without collapsing into a frozen fearfulness, without cutting ourselves off from others through panic and rage, and without denial. We consider the ways in which the culture many of us have grown up in teaches us always to be dissatisfied, to live our lives as if we'll only be able to show up when we have exactly the circumstances we think are due to us, and how this keeps us distant from the possibility of contributing to improving things. We talk together about how joy can connect us and those around us to the qualities and creativity the world needs so much, and how it might be possible to be joyful even in the midst of the deepest darkness.

As ever we are grateful for the wisdom and depth of those whose writing is at the heart of this project, and particularly this week for this poem by W S Merwin, who died last month at the age of 91. You can read more about him and his work in this article in The Atlantic.


Thanks

Listen

with the night falling we are saying thank you

we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings

we are running out of the glass rooms

with our mouths full of food to look at the sky

and say thank you

we are standing by the water thanking it

standing by the windows looking out

in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging

after funerals we are saying thank you

after the news of the dead

whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you

in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators

remembering wars and the police at the door

and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you

in the banks we are saying thank you

in the faces of the officials and the rich

and of all who will never change

we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us

taking our feelings we are saying thank you

with the forests falling faster than the minutes

of our lives we are saying thank you

with the words going out like cells of a brain

with the cities growing over us

we are saying thank you faster and faster

with nobody listening we are saying thank you

thank you we are saying and waving

dark though it is

– W S Merwin


Photo by James Padolsey on Unsplash

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