The Pain of the World Rev Dr Leonisa Ardizzone, UU Catskills 2 - February - 2020

(SUNG by Rev L - “Mad World” by Roland Orzabal, Tears for Fears) All around me are familiar faces Worn out places, worn out faces Bright and early for their daily races Going nowhere, going nowhere

Their tears are filling up their glasses No expression, no expression Hide my head, I wanna drown my sorrow No tomorrow, no tomorrow

And I find it kinda funny I find it kinda sad The dreams in which I'm dying Are the best I've ever had I find it hard to tell you I find it hard to take When people run in circles It's a very, very mad world, mad world

Children waiting for the day they feel good Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday And I feel the way that every child should Sit and listen, sit and listen

Went to school and I was very nervous No one knew me, no one knew me Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson Look right through me, look right through me

And I find it kinda funny I find it kinda sad The dreams in which I'm dying Are the best I've ever had I find it hard to tell you

I find it hard to take When people run in circles It's a very, very mad world, mad world“MAD WORLD”

When I was working on the service this week, the song “Mad World” by Tears for Fears was playing on a loop in my head. I’ve loved it since it came out during my first year of high school. The entire album ‘The Hurting’ remains one of my all time favorites, but this song keeps coming back to me, or at the very least the title, Mad World captures how I feel most days.

I want to let you all in on a secret about me: I have a pretty bleak world view. It may seem surprising because for the most part, I am upbeat, friendly, and feel compelled to spread love and joy. But the reason I am this way and do all these things, is because on a regular basis, and for many many years, I’ve really felt that humans are awful. It first occurred to me in my teens when I had a few devastating experiences, and then through a series of unfortunate events, I continued to think less and less of humanity. Not something your minister should admit to, right? But I am admitting it because a) it’s true, b) I imagine others in this room might feel the same way I do, and c) my doubt about humanity is, and has been, my core motivation to work for peace and justice my entire life.

My father likes to remind me that I was a very sensitive child. I was serious - I actually have baby pictures where my brow is already deeply furrowed, like I’m thinking “Oh no, I’m back!” - and apparently I cried at the drop of a hat. I still do that as most of you have seen. I suppose I’ve always been an empath hence my seriousness and underlying sadness. Actually, I think the word I am looking for is “Weltschmerz” an untranslatable German word meaning world-pain or more particularly a deep sadness about the imperfections of the world. Or, maybe more precisely, when the world as it is doesn't compare to what you think it should be. Yeah, I suffer from Weltschmerz. Anybody else?

Two weekends ago when I was staying at the Holy Cross monastery I got into a conversation with a few fellow “pilgrims”, and one of them - a young man about 20 years old, was reflecting on the sermon we just heard, about his desire to be genuine and to be his real self in the world….and how hard it was. I engaged with him and replied with something like “it’s really hard because the world just bombards us with images and messages that tell us to be anything but ourselves.'' The woman next to me, said “not everywhere!” And the only thing I could reply with was “Well, I disagree. And I know it’s strange to hear someone who peddles in hope say something so negative. But the world can be rotten, and acknowledging that rottennes is what inspires me to do my work everyday.”

I don’t think this makes me a negative person, or a misanthrope, though. Actually, as I said in my Ordination Benediction, I want us all to be “brokers of justice and joy”. My Weltschmerz is an unending source of inspiration for trying to Do Better, to make the world better. So, I cannot ignore the pain and suffering I see or hear about everyday. We cannot. But neither can we let it crush us. My husband, fearing for my well-being a year or so ago, forbade me from listening to Democracy Now for a good stretch of time, because I would call him from the car or once, from a closet at BOCES where I was working at the time, to cry and tell him how awful the world was and that I couldn’t walk into a room of teachers and act like what I was going to teach them actually mattered in the grand scheme of things! So we made the decision that I should cut back on Social Media and radio programs and anything that forced my empathic self into too much darkness. But that is a place of privilege. I can turn off Amy and Juan, I can stop reading the NY Times when it arrives in my inbox, I can avoid Facebook and Twitter….but what about the people who are LIVING through these things. They don’t get to turn them off do they?

And that brings me to the Pain of the World. War, famine, drought, children in cages, refugees, children starving, unchecked greed, lying leaders, unjust justice systems, systemic violence, virulent racism, misogyny, transphobia, climate change, unnecessary poverty, and the apparent death of our democracy at the hands of unscrupulous and self-serving elected officials. It’s enough to make you throw your hands up, stick your head in the figurative sand, and just sleep. Or watch TV. Or shop. Or do any other distraction that keeps us from REALLY feeling our feelings - our sadness, our rage, our disappointment, our frustration, our weltschmerz. But we have to feel it. Because feeling it allows us to do something with it.

How do we address the pain of the world? Buddhism’s core teachings are about the Nature of Suffering, and the Buddha made a distinction between pain and suffering: “Pain in life is inevitable but suffering is not. Pain is what the world does to you, suffering is what you do to yourself. Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.” So, we can feel personal pain and/or the pain of the world, but it need not turn into suffering, or something that debilitates us. And Jesus taught us that “blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” So if we give ourselves the time and space to mourn for the state of the world, we will find comfort from others. Victor Frankl wrote, “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.” And, Catholic theologian, priest, Franciscan Friar Richard Rohr says “you can tell a lot about someone by what they do with their pain; do they transform it or do they transmit it.” All these teachings remind me that we are resilient, and we can take what we see in the world and let it crush us, or we can transform

© Leonisa Ardizzone, 2020 3 4 it. We can be resilient in our Resistance, in our Resolutions to help others and to take action to dismantle unjust systems. And where do we find the strength, support and comfort to do so? Here. Right here in our UU community.

Father Gregory Boyle of Homeboy Industries says “Resilience is born by grounding yourself in your own loveliness, hitting notes you thought were way out of your range.” What is your loveliness? What is your gift? What can you do to address the ills of the world? Auden and Melville both put pen to paper, writing poetry and novels. Roland Orzabal wrote songs. Father Greg started an outreach program for gang members. Our own members write letters to TV stations, senators, and the newspapers. We march, we strike, we feed one another. We volunteer. We vote. We remember to breathe before we speak so our own pain doesn’t get transferred onto someone else. We remember that WE are a community, that WE are the change we wish to see in the world, that WE are the support, strength and comfort we need as we witness and live with the pain of the world.

As the Talmud reminds us: “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”

So I ask you, what are you called to do, in this UU Catskills community that helps us to address the pain of the world? What’s your superpower? Your special gift? What can you share with this community - writing songs and poems for services, designing artwork and brochures, writing letters and articles, helping in Religious Exploration, greeting visitors, volunteering at fundraising events, leading a small group ministry...whatever it is, let me know. Let us know.

Our pain must be transformed into something that shows our resilience. As Auden wrote “evil is unspectacular and always human….and we are introduced to Goodness each day…” so even with a bleak world view and an overwhelming sense of weltschmerz, we can find the goodness. We can BE the goodness. We can be the brokers of joy and justice that the world so desperately needs. May it be so.