A couple months ago I wrote about how I believe loneliness is one of the factors greatly affecting the poor mental health in our country. There are other pieces, and many of them overlap and/or greatly exacerbate each other. The point I wish to focus on today is: our loss of touch with reality. I see many people clinging to ideologies while neglecting or minimizing the reality in front of them. We all are susceptible to this temptation in varying degrees, so I hope drawing attention to it will help us come back to a reality that is much more fulfilling because it is, in fact, real.
When I was a camp counselor for many summers, we would have a special candlelight ceremony on the last night to say goodbye and try to leave a little inspiration with our campers. I would tell my girls that tomorrow they would be going back to the “real world” and while that tends to have a negative connotation, there is no reason they can’t carry the lessons learned and experiences made back into the real world. They can continue to live with their whole heart in the real world. Often their experiences made at camp in nature, particularly the relationships that were formed, were much more real than many of the experiences in the so-called real world.
So, what do I mean by reality? What is the real world and why is there a negative connotation often associated with it? My definition of reality is the experience, people, present moment, places and feelings right around us. We can create our reality to a certain extent, but much of our reality is given. The people in my reality are the people I know or have known. For many of us, most of the time, our reality is pretty monotonous. I see the same people, do the same tasks, go to the same places day in and day out. I believe this is where the negative connotation probably begins. I begin to see less of the value in washing things that will only get dirty again, growing things that will die in a couple months, doing the same job again and again often seeing little results. When it comes to the people in my reality- well they are real- so they bring their little annoyances, their discourtesies, they get in my space and need things from me. I have to forgive them again and again. I have to be patient with them again and again. They, however, have to wait on me as well. They have to forgive my offenses, as well. Sometimes this is even harder to accept. This is the place where true joy resides. It is hidden, of course, in between the monotony, the irritations, the offenses, but this is real, this is real life. When I walk by a wildflower that begs me to not just pass over my surroundings in a rush, when I work through an offense with forgiveness and a relationship deepens, when the messy, imperfect life around me surprises me with a jolt of joy and, therefore, I am grateful I didn’t retreat.
One of the many places I see people escape from reality is into certain ideologies, or rather into our head. It feels better to escape to a place where I can make a big difference if only certain people cooperated with my perfect plan. It feels nice to love people who I’ve never met, but I know are deserving of my love. I feel quite confident in my ability to make great sacrifices for my cause, especially if my cause has people who are right and people who are wrong. In the movie, Entertaining Angels about Dorothy Day, a Catholic woman who set up many shelters and houses of hospitality throughout the U.S, there is a striking scene in which Dorothy is having a moment of crisis. She goes to her church and yells at Jesus on the cross- “these brothers and sisters of yours, the ones you want me to love- Let me tell you something! They have lice and tuberculosis. Am I to find you in them? Well, you’re ugly! You drink. You wet your pants. You vomit. How could anyone ever love you?!” She leaves the church, considering being done with the work she created and her reality, she goes to her old Communist friend who thought she was crazy when she became Catholic. Surprisingly, he assures her that while his Party talks about feeding and clothing the poor, she has actually done it. I think Dorothy Day’s moment of crisis in this film expresses well the experience of many of us. When reality becomes too hard or painful or even too mundane, we can want to escape into a world of ideas, where what we believe is more important than how we live. The religions of the world have dealt with this temptation since the beginning, and hence there are many harmful religious ideologies out there. However, don’t be too quick to blame religion for its many failings for I notice many (maybe since religion is not the driving force in many parts of our country) political ideologies creeping in just as alluringly. On the right there are conspiracy theories, but on the left there are movements seeking to create quasi-utopias but mostly involving getting everyone to believe how they believe; mostly involving putting money into the “correct” hands. We are all susceptible to these ideologies pulling us farther from reality, creating both enemies and beloveds out of people we’ve never even met. I don’t believe joy can be found in our head. I believe escaping to ideologies only exacerbates our mental health crisis. To be truly healthy, we must remain in the messy, complex, beautiful reality of being human and living on earth. We must love those who are given to us in whatever reality- those at work, in our neighborhood, and our families. We must let others forgive our faults and forgive others’ faults. Let’s bring some real life to our real world!