Time of Fear, Time of Love: Are You Living Your Life?

I am sure many of you are living in “fear” mode over the last few months.  The Middle East seems to be in one of its most chaotic and unsafe moments.  One innocent man after another was beheaded with the barbaric murder shown around the world on video and social media, side by side with photos of the drones in Syria where the U.S. has tried to weaken the power of the ISIL.  It’s like watching a competition between two teams, to see which side will prevail.  Depending on which side one is on, it’s a war of good versus evil.  

On the same page of the major newspapers, the news about ISIL can be seen side by side with the Ebola crisis.  Where has the virus reached now?  What part of the country?  Which hospital?  How many more deaths in Africa?  How do we shield ourselves from this deadly virus with no cure in sight? 

A few days ago, there was news of ISIL calling for a targeting of military people and their families in the U.S.  My staff quickly told their relatives affiliated with the military to remove identifying things like army stickers on their cars.  Soon, very few people will like to walk around wearing army camouflage T shirts or pants.  Who of those walking among us are actually NOT “us”?   What if we are walking among “them”?  Was the mad man who beheaded his coworker in Oklahoma one of THEM? 

Just this past week, there was a murder and suicide in Potomac just around the corner from my house.  Fortunately, I was alerted by a friend to avoid using my usual route home which would have taken me right by the spot where the suicide took place.  As I found myself driving extremely slowly on River Rd, even on the alternate route, I started thinking how absurd it was to believe that we are safe in our suburban neighborhood, as if the expansive lawns and the tall trees would shield us from the same crimes we hear about taking place in inner city neighborhoods.  We are safer, but not 100% safe anywhere.  To live is to be exposed to risk.  As one of my friends told me during a sushi dinner at his house the other night:

“To reach Nirvana is to be DEAD!  As long as you are still alive, there are certain risks to take and certain stresses to face.  To be totally free of stress and reach the state of Nirvana is to be dead!”

There was a certain degree of truth in what he said. 

I think we live for the sake of love, to love and to be loved.  Love is the most important component in our existence.  We all, without even recognizing it, work around this desire to love and to be loved.  Lack of love is the ultimate unhappiness.

When a barbarian beheads someone, he wants to strike fear into our heart.  He robbed not only someone’s life, but the love of many people.  That “someone” he killed was a son, brother, uncle, father, friend, spouse, colleague to many people.  Once the victim’s head is off and he becomes lifeless, his life to himself is irrelevant.  He is, however, mourned by hundreds of people who had cherished him, who had hoped that, somehow, there might be a slight trace of humanity in these barbarians, and that they would set him free.  The victim’s family was fearful for his life, but they were also fearful for themselves, that his death would put them in a deep pit of sorrow, the place nobody wants to inhabit. 

The terrorists want to rob us of the love of living.  They want to stop us from going to the movie theater, taking a walk in our neighborhoods, strolling in a mall, cycling or running in a race for charity… They want to stop us from doing the things we love to do, the activities we find “meaningful” to our existence.  They want us to cease to exist, even when we are still alive.  They want to turn us into anxious people, as they know anxiety is not a state of happiness. 

Last week, my son’s school was evacuated twice.  I got the text and email from the school in the middle of my working day and, both times, I froze.  Where did he stand in the crowd, at the edge or in the middle, behind or in the front?  With his hearing impairment, could he hear clearly his teachers and school administrators’ instructions even with his hearing aids?  Could he see what was happening in front of him?  Was he close enough to another building just in case some terrible “thing” happened so that he could dash into it and escape?   

I later heard how he and some of his classmates had a plan to escape just in case something terrible happened in his school.  Why do these young people have to live in fear?  Why do they have to strategize for the safety of their lives like a game of chess? 

Should we stop living?  Should we stop flying and cruising and walking the woods around our house?  Should we avoid the mall and shop only online?  Rent a DVD instead of going to a movie theater?  Order out instead of lingering in a relaxed way in the crowded restaurants?  Driving instead of taking the train or metro?

In a few days, on Sunday, October 12, I will be running the Army Ten Miler.  I was thinking about canceling it this year, not because I fear that something terrible might happen during the race, but because I haven’t had time to practice long runs.  Whenever I run a race, I prefer not to slow down to a walk.  I always try my best to run the whole distance.  I am afraid of leg cramps at the eighth mile marker, not some terrorists ready to “blow us all up.”

We can’t let them rob us of the love of our existence, whether that love is an activity, a person or a place we want to visit.  What is life without taking a certain degree of risk? 

Frankly, for my vacation for now, I have no desire to go to Syria or Iraq for some historical tour.  I do not plan to do a medical mission some time soon in Liberia.  There are certain degrees of risk that I wouldn’t be willing to take, although I know I am a mortal.  However, to stop completely what I truly love to do is to kill my essence, which is more important, in my opinion, than my existence.  We are here to learn, to experience, to love.  To float along like a dead leaf on the river during a storm is not so meaningful an existence. 

Several years ago, during my third marathon, a sniper shot a few times at the Marine corps museum.  There was so much security at the race that I reassured my Dad not to worry about me.  I will be in the middle of the pack, not at the edge, I told him.

As in my son’s case, however, a part of me was embarrassed.  After all, why did I think other humans should be my shield?  Was my life more valuable than theirs?  

I plan to run as efficiently as I could a few years ago, running fast enough and without pain.  I know, especially by the time I get to the eighth mile marker, that I will not be thinking about being in the middle of the pack, as Sandy jokingly said to me that evening: 

“Standing in the middle of the pack?  What if the bomb falls in the middle of the pack? Wouldn’t it be better then, if I was at the edge of the crowd?” 

I think he got the point.  Things happen.  We are leading an unpredictable life.  We live the way we deem safe, but bad things still can happen.  Planning to avoid every possible bad outcome is not only impossible, but it robs us the moments we should spend living the life we love.  It is love, after all, not fear, that sustains us.

Last Sunday, shortly after the sun rose, I started my last long run before the Army Ten Miler event.  On the way back from North Beach, I noticed a little rat with a long tail scurrying across the street from a small area of wetlands along Bay Drive.  His head was down as if he wasn’t even looking ahead of where he was heading to.  The road was full of oncoming cars from both directions.

“Is he crazy? Can’t he see the cars or at least hear the sounds of the wheels heading his way?” I said to myself.

The rat didn’t stop.  He moved slowly but steadily in a straight line, and my heart was pounding for him.  As one car after another was passing him, I still saw his little body escaping one wheel after another until I spotted him on the other side of the street, like a miracle, alive and ready to dash into the wetlands ahead of him.

From a view above us, is that how it appears that we all are living our lives, escaping by chance all the horrendous things that could have fallen on us?  How did that rat escape all those cars at the slow pace he was going?  If he waited for all those cars to pass, he probably would have stayed on one side of the wetlands until dark.

I had my iPod with me during the run last Sunday morning, on the shuffle mode.  I was lucky that most of my favorite songs were played that morning, including Joan Baez singing that memorable Bod Dylan song from 1962 “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall.”

“Oh, what did you see, my blue eyed son?

And what did you see, my darling young one?

I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it

I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it

I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’

I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’

I saw a white ladder all covered with water

I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken

I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children

And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard

It’s a hard rain a-gonna fall…”

We are not living in a unique era of “hard times.”  Obviously, from the songs in the 1960s, our country and the world has faced many hard times before.  The world our children is witnessing is no different from that of Bob Dylan’s in the 1960s, one with injustice, suffering, pollution and warfare, one in which: 

“I met one man who was wounded in love, I met another man who was wounded in hatred…”

As I ran through the town’s isolated boardwalk, the beautiful guitar music, played by Van Morrison and Ron Elliott from St Dominic Preview from the song “Almost Independence Day” gave me an almost ten-minute distraction from my sore legs.  I was thinking how, with all the fighting against ISIL by the U.S. and its allies, the women from that region someday will be free from their physical and emotional chains, to explore and experience life to their fullest potential.  They will see their days of independence.

Coincidentally, as I ran toward my neighborhood, finishing up the 9 mile loop, Joan Baez was on again singing “Amazing Grace” with her audience at a concert, followed by the Nitty Gritty Dirty band playing the guitar version of “Amazing Grace”! 

Two different CDs, in its shuffle mode, ended my run with “Amazing Grace” being played twice.  Was it all coincidental, or, was it a message that I and the other runners will be safe next weekend?

I will let you know how I did after I come back from the Army Ten Miler…Hopefully in once piece… JUST KIDDING! 

Don’t be afraid to live your life. Know what you love, and follow the path, with certain degree of caution.  Nobody is immortal.