The Mercy of Crisis

The Mercy of Crisis

Is mercy in crisis during the countdown to 2012? There is a sub-current of dissatisfaction with our lives that we generally try to avoid becoming aware of. Is the daily routine what our existence is supposed to be all about? The constant effort to survive and hopefully prosper? The endless conflicts, both little and great? Frustrations both within and without?

We look at ourselves and see a mean, self-serving person who is preoccupied most of the time with what he or she can get, which is anything that can make the seemingly endless drudgery of life “easier.” We do our work but resent it, and wish there was more “free” time – then we use the free time we get doing mindless, pointless things such as watching other people on TV likewise doing mindless, pointless things.

We want the world at large to be orderly and predictable because if it isn’t our inner sub-current of dissatisfaction increases and becomes even more uncomfortable. We have this vague idea of enduring till the “end,” when death will mercifully set us free from the constant stress and misery of living in a world where no one, most especially ourselves, is at peace. At the same time we dread the idea of dying before we’ve learned how to really live.

In human history’s past such a condition could continue without apparent change for an extremely long time, perhaps through a person’s entire life, without resolution. The message of the Mayan Calendar is that this is no longer possible. Crisis has been brought to bear upon humanity, both individually and collectively, in order to force into conscious awareness what has been hidden in the depths.

We are not meant to live pointlessly, purposelessly. We are not meant to be consumed by our culture of materialism and ignorance. We are not meant to be so little, so self-absorbed, so dead. But the process of changing from that condition into a genuine existence is neither easy nor painless. It involves plunging into the inner condition of our hearts and experiencing this directly. It requires touching that sub-current of dissatisfaction and feeling it thoroughly, out to the extremities of our finger tips.

The crisis is there to destroy what no longer truly serves, and force us to abandon our dependence on outer, superficial validation for the interpretation of reality. The crisis is an expression of ultimate divine mercy.