World Hurt

Daisy
Photo by Dries Knapen

I've been behind in reading my friends' blogs. So many are feeling overwhelmed by life. Some are feeling marginalized, others are reflecting on their dreams. Some are looking for new opportunities. All feel some anguish and pain.

The first time I read The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving, one German word from the whole book stood out to me; Weltschmerz. Here is a quote from the book.

Lilly's Weltschmerz, as Frank would come to call it. "The rest of us have anguish," Frank would say. "The rest of us merely suffer. But Lilly, "Frank would say, "Lilly has true Weltschmerz. It shouldn't be translated as 'world-weariness,'" Frank would lecture us, "that's much too mild for what Lilly's got. Lilly's Weltschmerz is like 'world-hurt,'" Frank would say "Literally 'world' - that the Welt part - and 'hurt,' because that's what the Schmerz part really is: pain, real ache. Lilly's got a case of world-hurt," Frank concluded proudly.

The weltschmerz my friends are living saddens me. Some feel it through the discrimination they are living, as they grow older than what culture deems as appropriate for their interests. Others are wondering if their lives are as fulfilled as they could have made it.

I think many are feeling the weltschmerz. The global economy is in the toilet as is the environment. We are barely getting by a pandemic by luck. American health care costs are growing faster than we can match with our decreasing salaries. Fundamentalism is growing both outside the US as well as next door.

There is a growing cultural divide that could tear our country apart. Civility is almost dead, replaced by fear, ignorance, and oppression. This entire calamity makes me wonder if the religious zealots are right with their predictions that we are approaching the end times… the apocalypse.

My parents were born during the depression. My mom was born and raised in Baltimore. Her mom went blind when my mom turned seven. Her dad left them soon after. Imagine being a blind, single mom trying to raise two children, seven and two.

My dad grew up in rural Pennsylvania, not far from Washington’s crossing. Like my mom, he has only one sibling. My grandfather was an artist. During the depression he took up woodworking and scratched out a living making cabinets and teaching art.

Neither of my parents talk much about the poor times or the war. They said though that it was a gradual day-to-day improvement over many years. Neither family became wealthy, but they recovered.

During those hard times, the government sponsored many important public works. These works included infrastructure construction, arts, music, education, and many other pursuits that are still helping us during our current rough times. I am hoping President Obama, and our nations public, private, academic, scientific, artistic, and theological leaders can help us do this again.

I may be an optimist, but I feel we are on the edge of a global renaissance. We are slowly learning how humanity has sullied the earth. How our greed has blinded us to core values of importance. How we have forgotten to help each other, even though we may be different. How beautiful the simple elegance of our creativity can open up our hearts, develop sciences that we never dreamed, and create art that will communicate both the pain and suffering and the beauty of our existence.

I may be a naïve idealist, but I must believe this or I will go mad. My hope and beliefs in the goodness of humanity are one of the few things I still have faith in. The thought of my faith being for naught makes me feel true weltschmerz.

We are going to continue to have suffering, hunger, war, poverty, censorship, environmental destruction, and other human-made disasters. This bright future will not happen tomorrow, next year, or maybe in the remainder of my days, but as my parents witnessed, through gradual, purposeful growth toward a new reality.