I know what it is like to feel that you may not be able to go on. We all do. We remember that moment; details stand out - a scent, a color or maybe the time registered on the clock on the wall. We all could tell the story about the time when life changed completely and we were left with the seemingly impossible task of continuing to live. In all of our individual and collective lives there comes a time when we lose the way, lose our hope and stand in crashing waves that threaten to overwhelm us. And sometimes we are tempted to just surrender to their power.
Occasionally one among us gives in. Someone determines that they simply cannot or will not go on and they take their own life. Sometimes it happens like it did on that day, 59 years ago Saturday, when the atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima, Japan. One man, impossibly comprehending the breadth of the death and destruction, insisted through his tears that he would not leave his burning home. Friends thought him mad and pulled him out, but he wrestled himself free and ran back in. He would not be saved.[1]
Sometimes it happens that way and when it does we experience it as a tear in the fabric of life. When one actively or passively surrenders their life, we who are left, grieve. In sorrow and even in anger we struggle to understand, but we really can't, except in glimpses. We can't because we understand that no matter the tragedy and despite incomprehensible loss and despair, people mostly choose life.
There is a biological explanation for this behavior. The neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp explains that affective responses such as fear are encoded into the sub cortical brain of mammals. Our mammalian response to a stimulus that we are afraid of is to attempt to protect ourselves.[2] In other words, humans are hardwired to live and to preserve our lives. We are biologically programmed to seek self-preservation when we feel threatened. Further, the degree to which we act out of our biological impulse to survive is directly influenced by the strength of our fear. The more threatened we are, the stronger our drive to protect our lives. Life desires life.
However, humans have also evolved with the capacity for advanced brain functioning. We are not ruled by biology. We are also able to reflect upon our feelings, assess our circumstances and make choices that are informed by more than our affective responses.[3] Though it is our nature to choose life, we are always free to choose. And most of us, most of the time, even when we really don't know how or if we will survive, choose life.
How do we do it? How do we keep on when all seems lost? John Hersey tells the story of six people who survived the bombing of Hiroshima in his book of the same name. On the morning of August 6, 1945, in that city of 240,000, the explosion instantly killed 100,000 people. Another 100,000 were injured.[4] Mrs. Nakamura and her three children were buried in their collapsed house. Mrs. Nakamura dug herself and then her children out of the debris and kept on by making each little decision, the decision that must be made next. Where would they go? What would they take? Each discreet decision led to the next and that is how they survived those first few days - one moment at a time.
Dr. Terufumi Sasaki was one of the very few who experienced little immediate physical impact from the blast. He was a physician working in the Red Cross Hospital when the bomb went off. He was the only one in the hospital who wasn't hurt. He kept on by tending to the injured people around him. By nightfall, 10,000 people crowded the streets around the hospital seeking medical care. Dr. Sasaki worked for three straight days with only one hour of sleep trying to preserve as many lives as he could.[5]
In times of shared disaster, that is often how it goes. People reach out for life; we rally with loved ones and strangers alike and give ourselves to life's preservation. Each of us is filled with stories from the bombings on September 11. We have seen what it is for people to help each other, to hold hope for each other.
I think that is how it goes in our individual lives too. We receive news of some personal tragedy and we truly can't see how we will go on. Incapacitated by shock and grief we are carried by those who would provide the next meal, help make the next decision, we are held by those who come bearing hope, those who can remember something other than despair. "Those who knew what this was all about," says the poet Szymborska writing of war, "must give way to those who know little. And less than little." I think what she means is that sometimes we must yield to those who don't stand with us in the eye of the storm. That doesn't mean they are unaffected or detached or that they understand nothing of our circumstance. It just means that they have not shared our experience; they have not been broken in quite the same way. We know we cannot do it ourselves and we must accept help from others who are not incapacitated by our battering sorrow.
The teacher and wise man Parker Palmer writes in his book, Let Your Life Speak, about a time in his life when he was consumed by a debilitating, clinical depression. He had one friend who came weekly. There was nothing to say, no way to take away the storm, so the friend simply massaged Palmer's feet. Week after week he came and performed this simple act of human companionship, love and hope. It was for Parker a lifeline. His friend's touch helped him hold on through his private storm.[6]
I think that is part of how we do it. We rely on the help, on the hope, of others. We take the steps we can, despite our inability to see anything of the way. We decide to trust the voices that tell us the way leads on. And then, to our amazement, there comes a day when we catch glimpses of the way for ourselves. It can be hard to believe, after so much hurt, hard to hold on to the glimpses of hope and laughter that rise within us. Sometimes we even actively resist holding on to them for fear that we don't deserve that grace. Especially for those who survive a terrible catastrophe, the renewal of life can inspire feelings of guilt and renewed grief for those who have been lost. Happiness can feel like a betrayal. I think of this as an especially confusing part of the journey to wholeness.
A friend describes the first couple of years after her husband died as the time when she carried grief like a stone in her pocket. It was always with her. She felt she needed it within reach. Should she be distracted by some pleasure that was too much to bear, she could reach down and feel the weight of that stone. I think of this as the time when we begin to understand that we can choose. Will we risk hope? Will we dare to sing?
Eleanor Coerr tells the story of a child affected by the bombing of Hiroshima in her book Sadako. Sadako was just a baby when the bomb exploded. She grew up to be a girl who seemed healthy and happy. She loved running and was training to be on her school's relay team. But one day she collapsed. An examination revealed that she had leukemia, or, as she called it, "the atom bomb disease." Sadako's best friend showed up at the hospital with paper and a plan. "If a sick person folds one thousand paper cranes," she reminded her friend, "the gods will grant her wish and make her well again."
Sadako set to work folding paper cranes. Her spirits ebbed and flowed with her health. She sensed she might die but she wanted to believe, so she continued to fold the birds. After a few months in the hospital and just around the time when she passed the halfway point to a thousand cranes, Sadako got a respite. Her health stabilized and she was allowed to go home for the biggest holiday of the year. It was a celebration, a reprieve, a moment suspended in love and joy and beauty.
When her health failed and she had to return to the hospital, Sadako began to speak more clearly of dying. Her friends and family wanted her to keep folding cranes, urged her to hold on to hope. Sadako knew that she was holding on to hope, it was just that she no longer hoped she might live. Instead she hoped, in fact she believed, that even when she died she would ever be a part of her family's loving circle. The night she died she was surrounded by the warm embrace of her family and enveloped by all of the cranes she had folded hovering above her head, fluttering in the faintest breeze.[7]
Even though her body could not live, Sadako lives on. She lives on because she was willing to risk connecting, willing to risk hope, willing to risk love. This is the way. Even though it hurts, to keep on we must risk. The Reverend Kim Crawford Harvie describes this as the way we allow broken hearts to be broken open. The image is infused with sharp edges and warm, light shining through. It is what can save us when we have lost the way.
"You must sing to be found," says the poet Li-Young Lee, "[and] when found, you must sing." The good news is that the singing can transform us. The good news is that hope creates hope. The good news is that the way can yet again become clear. The good news is that we can lend ourselves as guides for other lost and fearful travelers. Life desires life and the fractures can and do heal. And we can become strong in the broken places.
The historian of religion, Thomas Berry, writes "the catastrophic moments are also the creative moments . . . for if the challenge is so absolute, the possibilities are equally comprehensive."[8] That is usually impossible to see or even dare believing in the midst of our heartache, but once we begin risking again, we begin to see paths that were invisible before. We begin to see another way and to claim life anew. It is not about forgetting and getting over it. It is about remembering and living still. It is about holding the joy and sorrow and calling it all life, precious life, and embracing it with gratitude and gentle compassion.
When Sadako died, her friends and classmates wanted to fold the rest of the cranes so she could be buried with 1000 graceful birds. They folded the cranes and another way appeared. They decided they wanted to publish her letters and organize a Folded Crane Club in her honor. They followed the path and yet another way emerged in the distance. They began to dream of a monument dedicated to her and to all of the children killed by the atomic bomb. They followed that new dream for three years. In 1958 they dedicated a statue of Sadako in the Hiroshima Peace Park. "She is standing on the Mountain of Paradise, holding a golden crane in outstretched hands." Every year children create garlands of paper cranes to hang under the statue on Peace Day. Every year thousands come and see again the words inscribed on the base, "This is our cry, this is our prayer: Peace in the World."[9]
This is how we go on. We follow the way, trusting in those who have gone before, trusting that there will be more ground on which we can live. We follow the way, widening the trail for those who will surely walk that path behind us. We nurture our hope until we are again ready to risk our hearts. We do it tenderly, with uncertain steps, in our own time. We do it with the help of other hearts, other hands that might guide us for a time. We tell our stories to those who will hear. We listen to the stories that others must tell. We say that we believe in life and that life is good and worth living. That is how we keep on. That is how we heal ourselves and each other. That is how we wage peace. "Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious," writes the poet Judyth Hill, "have a cup of tea and rejoice. Act as if armistice has already arrived. Celebrate today." For all of us, all of our days, may it be so. Amen.
Closing Words
From the Reconstructionist Jewish Prayer BookWe cannot merely pray to God to end war;
For the world was made in such a way
That we must find our own path of peace
Within ourselves and with our neighbor.Therefore we pray instead
For strength, determination and will power,
To do instead of merely pray
To become instead of merely wish;
That our world may be safe,
And that our lives may be blessed
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