Just like in photography we can zoom in and have one perspective on something or we can zoom way out and with a little more distance see it as just part of a larger landscape. I am finding that this is
possible with spiritual perspective as well. Sometimes when we focus in closely on events that are happening in the world we are overcome by the sadness, the suffering, the cruelty, etc. But when I can step back into what I have previously described as the "River of God"... a perspective where I see at a distance the bustle of humanity, the cycle of birth, life and death...the multitude of human dramas: car accidents,falling in love, illness, small acts of kindness,evil bosses, parties, marital issues, bonuses, children squabbling, breathtaking beauty, jealousy and competition, art and creation, etc, etc. When I can see it all swirling in one unending drama that has gone on in slightly different forms and completely unchanged forms from the beginning of human history...I am able to see that even intense suffering, in this minute or da, will pass away again. I am able to see that even horrific
historic events occurring during this year in our society will also resolve
Photos by Fay Anderson
(for better or worse and the
next series of events will arise and also pass away.) Even when I feel that climate change potentially carries in it the end of society as we know it, I am able to notice that the Black Plague and the nuclear arms race also felt that way...that we are not the first people to think they faced end times. This allows me to come to a place that Buddhist teachers talk about as "this too". It is a sort of seeing the suffering with an open heart, a heart of compassion. None of this invalidates or makes insignificant that which the close up view can show me, but it allows me to step back, to not be totally caught in that event, or that pain.
Please understand that I cannot always do this. There are times I am full of adrenaline or righteous indignation, or personal hurt and I am right in that close up shot and full of emotion. This is a relatively new spiritual development that is not always there. But I have had a glance of i,t and when I can do it I feel that I have entered the "peace that passes understanding."
This is also not to imply that from this farther out perspective one is able to just say: "Oh well". There is a beautiful passage in the bible where Jesus is looking down on Bethlehem from a hill and he sees the condition of mankind, and in the shortest sentence in the Bible it says of God incarnate: "Jesus wept." So there is a feeling of both love and compassion. Even God who has given us free will, is not completely in charge of what happens, but does care about it all.
Amidst all that human drama I described above there is still the possibility at every moment to use the evolving events for spiritual growth, and always the possibility to reach out to God and learn what God has for us to learn, to grow into a more profound relationship with God, and that is an even more profound spiritual shift!
