Finding Stillness Amidst Tumult

We've come through a tumultuous time and there's more tumult ahead. Some folks I care about are happy with the election returns and some are unhappy. Seems to me, what we all need now is the answer to how we organize and nurture our interior world as we negotiate the days to come.

The first thing that comes to mind is Macbeth's soliloquy. Shakespeare had Macbeth declare,

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing."

Macbeth was seeking to find some ultimate understanding of life as he mourned the death of his wife. He, like some prescient foreshadowing of Camus, ultimately finds it all to be absurd. We, all of us, posture and prance upon the stage of life in futile efforts to massage our egos and, briefly, feel good about ourselves. It is, of course, only a temporary fix because any momentary indulgence in pride or despair that arises from sources outside of ourselves is folly.

We, each of us, can seek to nurture a peace that passes all understanding, by letting that which arises outside of ourselves, to float on by while we remain still. We spend so much of our lives caught up in stimulus and response, constantly tossed about emotionally as we bounce between our ego needs and our fears.

Seeking internal stillness does not mean we do not seek to achieve goals that benefit both ourselves and those we love but we enable a calm ability to manage internal turmoil so we are more effective in our striving in life.

Eckhart Tolle said, "Whenever you deeply accept the moment as it is – no matter what form it takes – you are still, you are at peace." He, quite wisely also said, "Don't take your thoughts too seriously."

Not taking even our own thoughts too seriously also, by implication, means we don't get our emotions and thoughts all wrapped around the axle from politicians who strut and fret their hour upon the stage seeking to fill their own ego needs by performing for, they hope, the adulation of the masses.

By remaining calm and seeking healing and hope in the midst of chaos we can both serve one another and ourselves no matter how tumultuously the world around us revolves.