On Safety

I think of a word that has entered my common parlance more than usual lately. I think of actively desiring a sense of being safe, which is now in the forefront of my mind. Normally such a status would rest lightly in the annals of comfortable memory. Why would it not? Do I not accept feeling safe as a given in my life? I do not live in dangerous circumstances; I do not knowingly put in myself in harm’s way; I feel the overarching protection of living in a country governed by laws.

Something has changed...

But something has changed.  There seem to be more lawless, murderous people intent on disturbing people's lives all around the world with few brakes on their behaviors.  Reason is disrupted.  Why would angry, dangerous people want to harm the innocent simply because they can?  These behaviors have been explained over and over with no solutions.  And part of feeling unsafe comes about when we know that even the best military and police forces cannot guarantee physical safety.

What's to be done?.....

What's to be done?  Do we wait and hope that such anti-social trends will "play themselves out?"  Do we sequester ourselves in prayer?  Do we stir ourselves from accepted comforts to enter into the lives of those who live in a kind of perpetual danger because of their environments?  Perhaps so, in the ways that we can.  Since we know there really are no guarantees that will insure us we will live long, happy lives and die in our beds, maybe we will need to be more active participants in knowing where we can spread some good around...active, effortful good.

Inner stalwartness...

If we are genuine  believers in a spiritual system that provides a powerful foundation of being, perhaps this is as safe as it gets since it is not dependent on the preservation of physical bodies.  Certainly it is a good, jumping-off place into a world that needs our best, even if it cannot provide constant safety.  Perhaps there is some inner stalwartness to be found in moving in the active threads of life rather than longing for stability.  When we are "up against it," as we sometimes are, and walk though it, as we eventually must, I think we find the safest place there is...the one inside us that rises to meet our needs.

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You may enjoy "On The Comfort of the Familiar."