Bruce Weik: Practicing the art of living

“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.” Jack Kerouac

Violence

More mass killings. One a week, if not more. Violence resides in all of us. We all carry a dark side. When we engage in war, it is all of us that are responsible, not just the chosen few. With each school shooting, each mall killing, each street corner revenge, humanity becomes less than what it could have been. When we take an eye for an eye, we become no better than our enemy. We move away from the common good, toward the common bad. Before long, we accept the common bad as OK, something we can live with. This is the law of diminishing humanity. We are all responsible. We sit around and watch ourselves slide once again into the primordial ooze. What good is a gun going to do anyone all slimed up with primordial ooze?

Work

I met an angel. She was a waitress at The Waffle House. Those bright eyes and that infectious smile. She must have been about 23 or so. I heard her tell another customer that she had two children. I didn’t hear anything about a husband. Hopefully, she won’t become a slave to the wage, however poor she might be. She wants to go to college. Pre-med. I think she can do it. An angel can do anything.

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Contemplation

Flying in a six-seat Cessna at 5,000 feet on a clear night can be an exhilarating experience. What a sense of freedom and escape. Looking at all the lit-up towns is truly fascinating. Small patches of 50, 1,000, 5,000 lights. Single lights off in an isolated nowhere. Imagine, under all those lights, the stories people could tell: fathers trying to teach their sons how to be a good man; a wife wondering why she married an abusive husband; daughters yet to be married; grandchildren yet to appear; careers still to be realized. Births, deaths, town heroes, town whores, lovers of life, killers of hope. Things beautiful and thoughts ugly flood into my mind. The plane turns dark, except for the lights below and the zillions of stars above. The constellations look like they are alive. The Milky Way, pouring out its miracle elixir. Orion, ready to do battle with evil. The North Star about to get a new job. It will need to guide us home.

The regulator on the plane is out. The instrument panel is black. There is no way to know if the landing gear went down or not. It is a pity such a beautiful night ends with such bad news.

Compassion

It is not enough to call oneself compassionate: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” is not an armchair slogan meant for the faint of heart. It is the boiling down of all the great religions into an elixir for a better world. Treat one another like you would want to be treated is a call to action. It is the dirt out of which all goodness grows. If there is a hungry person, feed her. She doesn’t need our prayers. She needs a meal. If a person is living on the street, in a car, or in some filthy, drug infested public housing, he doesn’t need our pity or pleasant scriptures, he needs a place to live. If I am killing my enemy and destroying his home and family, he doesn’t need my explanations or a copy of my ideology, he needs me to quit. Preaching that the poor will get their reward in heaven is of little value to a person here on Earth who is burdened with injustice and oppression. It is a morally devoid position taken by irresponsible preachers. We have been called to respond compassionately to our fellow human beings, Now. Today. The calling has come to us. We are the chosen ones. It is time for us to step forward. Promises of a better tomorrow are not worth much today.

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Faith

You got to have faith.” The question would be: In what? Most often, having faith refers to having a belief in God. Faith in God requires a leap into the unknown, the unprovable. There is no 100% certainty. You either believe or you don’t. There is not much of a halfway point. Taking that leap is difficult for a lot of people, including myself. You want to dive over the edge like a bungee jumper, but you don’t quite trust it. The cord; the distance; the bounce. Generally speaking, I could use a shove, but that’s not how it works. It’s you who must face the doubt and uncertainty. I try to leap across the chasm in two measured, hesitant leaps, but I always come up short. Faith is a word that has always troubled me. I find it, then lose it; find it, then lose it; find ...

Bruce Weik, was a longtime columnist for The Zephyr, and is co-creator of Many Paths Galesburg since 2019.

This article originally appeared on Galesburg Register-Mail: Weik: Thoughts on violence, work, contemplation, compassion and faith