Sitting with the uncomfortable

I am going to refer to someone else's words tonight, based largely on the recommendation of a friend:

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/eric-d-huntsman_hard-sayings-and-safe-spaces-making-room-for-both-struggle-and-faith/

It came up in the conversation because we were talking about the way people resist knowledge that doesn't feel good, and she mentioned this theme of taking time to sit with the discomfort.

The talk has a broader range than I expected, with one point of annoyance when he refers to safe spaces and trigger warnings in a way that shows he does not understand their point. (His note refers to another author, but I am not bothering with it for now. I will link to this: https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2017/06/trigger-warnings-and-ptsd.html)

Moving on, I am currently reading about issues with reconciling abuses - especially via the Indian residential school system - in Canada. Some of the most interesting material was about the mythology that Canadians have maintained about being peacemakers, which was partly a way of defining themselves against their US neighbors to the South. It ignores some very literal violence, but also broken treaties and other bad dealing. (US mythology has often embraced the violence.)

There are bad feelings that happen when you go into this. People may feel guilty and disappointed, but they also may often feel hostile and resentful. The belief they had was a lie, but they don't want to lose that lie.

I believe next week I am going to write about forgiveness, and I may not be completely traditional in how I do that. However, if we want to get to a point where wrongs are truly healed, that is going to require puncturing the myths. It will have to require acknowledging wrong beliefs, often wrong actions, and accepting times when we have gotten benefits that we did not deserve. That is uncomfortable.

I do think a normal reaction to learning about a wrong is wanting to fix it. When that seems impossible, there may be a certain logic to resisting that knowledge. The logic falls apart under closer examination. While the past cannot be changed, the present can, and those can be really good changes that bless us all.

Last week I mentioned being overwhelmed at times. When I am retaining presence of mind, I let that overwhelming feeling wash over me, like a wave crashing. I feel it, and then I move on.

That technique started for me when sometimes my mind would balk at eternal concepts, literally like eternity and infinity and things that are too far outside a mortal frame of reference. I would feel sick to my stomach, and push the thoughts away, often with really shallow pop music. That did not feel quite right, and I started just letting the feeling wash over me. I don't comprehend it, and that's okay. I will keep going.

Just as there are times when we can fight uncertainty or embrace it; we can do that with discomfort as well.

I know which one has resulted in more peace.