The Forest, the trees and the woods we’re all lost in
You can’t see the forest for the trees is a saying as old as the hills (or trees). Most the time when we are totally covered up by life it’s hard to see the larger picture…all ‘the trees’ block our view. The saying is akin to “the fish doesn’t know he’s wet when he’s swimming in the ocean”. We get so used to our circumstances or situation that we ignore, miss or don’t see the elements of it.
This last year and a half has been unique to all alive—or lost their lives—all over the world. The uncertainty of the pandemic, the resulting uncertainty of the economy, the crazy politics, the isolation and the loss of ‘normal’ for these many months—all serve to elevate the anxiety we’ve all felt. Angst is a part of all life but the levels we’ve all been under has stressed us to the max at times. It has become a new ‘normal’ in a sense which makes it a tad more difficult to evaluate the effects of it all on our ‘systems’—health wise, emotionally and spiritually. We’ve had to find ways to cope. First it was buying up toilet paper. Then ordering EVERYTHING on line and curbside pickup became a part of the new normal. Politics overcame common sense when it came to wearing a mask…and now the vaccine. For those of us in the higher risk crowd—for whatever reason—we just stayed home—but the isolation really sucked.
For the many of us (if not all) who’ve struggled with some sort of addiction, it ratcheted upward. For those who’d never struggled, they found themselves with time to kill—and an addiction sure helps fill the time. We all found Netflix, Amazon Prime and all the other streaming channels. Our phone conversations were around what we’d been binge watching. I let my lawn guy go so I’d have some exercise mowing. When spring came gardening was a diversion. We like many got into household projects. Lowe’s and Home Depot have done well—as long as the supply chain held up. Others did major remodeling and additions since we were all ‘homebodies’. We got into walking the neighborhoods and met new people. Dog owners with one, bought another. Air fryers disappeared from the shelves which was another thing we got into, cooking. Early on, good luck trying to find what you needed to bake bread. Then, someone had to eat all of this so we put on the pounds.
All of this coping did not stop the uncertainty and now with the DELTA variant (only the first), parts of the world are back to lockdown again. I fear we are moving that direction as the politicizing of the vaccine and masks ramp up again. It remains to be seen what independent, ‘John Wayne’ Americans will do—yet I suspect I know. They seem to think they are special and that staying in the queue or acting for the common good is not in their wheelhouse.
During WWII if you had a family member in the military you often placed a star in your front window—blue, red or gold. The war was personal to those families—they had an investment somewhere overseas. That’s been a problem with COVID-19. Although it’s been in our faces via the media ad infinitum, many still don’t know anyone personally that has died of it. So it has become the other old saying, ‘until the hot oil splashes on me, I don’t care’.
Growing up Nazarene/Pentecostal there was always a big chart in the foyer titled Prayer and Self Denial (earlier, Fasting). It was like lent all year. You wrote down on the chart what you were willing to deny yourself and then the amount of money you’d give to the missionary society. Those charts disappeared decades ago.
The idea of the common good is not very common. But in the decades to come, it will have to be if humanity expects to survive. Mankind faces some big challenges. The creative and scientists among us have discovered ways to address issues in the past. Yet now the challenges are global, we are all hurling through space on this big blue marble together. Yet we’ve all got a streak of selfishness that we have to learn to counter. Some will not care to curb their wants or desires in the least. Being churched as a kid, talk of sins—all kinds of sin, was weekly. Yes, the HOT ones of the flesh were the ‘worst' but in reality, selfishness was at the core. Sin and selfishness are synonymous.
It wasn’t until we made it to 2021 that I personally with hindsight recognized or admitted that I was depressed last year like nearly two-thirds of us. Choosing to move into retirement the same month COVID hit helped to shove me into my melancholia although I’ve lived there most of my life. At times I’ve wondered if I wasn’t perpetually dysthymic—a low grade, long term depression. I just read something in a Cassandra King Conroy book Tell Me a Story about having “beauty disease”. She has it. I’ve got it bad. It’s an incurable longing for, and appreciation of beauty—wherever it may be found. Some people can live, as she says, in less-than-attractive or even squalid surroundings, while others of us sink into depression when forced to do so. So we get busy changing the surroundings—by design, creativity, decorating—whatever moves our ‘space’ toward that relish for beauty.
Jeannie says too often, “we’ve got to get rid of some of this clutter (or junk)”. Like Billy Crystal told his wife in Still Foolin’ ‘Em, “it’s not clutter, it’s memories”. DITTO! We have art pieces each having its own backstory—just as every memento does. So gazing around the house or my study is like a memory lane of places, people and occasions. It works helping to rise from the doldrums.
Beauty buoys my spirits.
I’ve yet to resort to psychotropic medications unless you want to include caffeine and sugar in the list. I’ve thought about it during these many months. Lowering my expectations is rarely easy for me. This line of the Serenity Prayer nails me every time I recite it: “to take this world as it is, as Jesus did, not how I want it to be”. I want to transform the ugly of this world—but therein is a really unreasonable expectation. Ugh! So I just check my seat belt of this roller coaster called life and try, I said try, to sit still. It’s not about having no expectations of life, it’s about holding them loosely. Should you have a day when all turned out the way you thought it was going to, circle that date on your calendar—THAT was the exception! Curly’s song lyrics in OKLAHOMA! “Everything’s going my way!”, happens rarely. The rarity of it likely made him burst into song.
Another thing that weighs on most of us is that we think someone out there does have all their #*!X* together. Social media and advertising feeds that lie. Lower the bar and quit the comparisons. Set it so low that at first you trip over it as you get out of bed. Then, being successful, raise it a fraction (I said a fraction). It is the success of topping the bar that brings the energy to go on.
Although in the pandemic it’s been tough but we must stay connected. We’ve all discovered ZOOM and multiple other ways via the internet to stay in touch. Fall to your knees in gratitude for the technology that has helped keep us sane (yet at times driven our craziness too). It’s always been about making better choices, the internet is no different. When perusing the many apps and channels, darkness and the apocalyptic is everywhere. For those of us with ‘beauty disease’, it applies there too.
There was a column in the Tulsa Tribune when I was growing up: Think on These Things. It was a takeoff of this verse:
Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. Philippians 4:8
This verse isn’t just applicable to those of us with melancholia or beauty disease.
When in the thick of the forest, a tree can still be as beautiful as Joyce Kilmer says in her poem. But you’ve got to look for it—open your eyes and see it. We’re in a time when trees are easy to miss. The stress we are all under is taking its toll. Beware of the effects on you too and consider exposing yourself to the ‘beauty disease’. It’s worked for Cassandra King and I, it just might for you too.
(King and I, Yule Brenner? I know grammatically it should be ‘me’. Chill.)