I saw a good friend of  mine today, I saw instantly that she was angry and frustrated.

She was unhappy at reading the political news – the hatred, fury and cruelty of it.  She has become somewhat addicted to it. Byt mostly, she was frustrated because her 90-year-old mother had been without phone service for weeks and she couldn’t get the telephone company to repair it. And because her mother is cranky and confused, and is driving her mad. And because she loves her mother much and was afraid for her.

Her mother just fired the woman my friend had hired to buy groceries for her once a week because she wanted her children to do it. Her children, like my friend, are busy with work and their own children, and are finding caring for their mother, whom they love, to be a full-time job in and of itself.

My friend was unmoored, and I was upset for her.

An even-tempered, gracious person, she was no longer grounded, she had been taking in the hatred in our political system and was arguing with a corporate behemoth that cared nothing for  her or her frail mother. She was not herself, she had lost herself, and I told her that.

She had lost the home within herself, looking everywhere outside of herself for it.

“I know I’m not grounded,” she said, “my husband says the same thing every day.”She was painfully upset.

I went home after talking to my friend, but it bothered me. Her problems are not my problems, but I have worked hard to stay grounded in the face of all of the noise, frustration, corporate arrogance and greed, problems and frustrations and political hatred around us.

It is hard not to take it in, breathe it in.

My friend’s mother had just been released from a nursing home, she had fallen and fractured her pelvis and two bones in one arm, she insisted on staying in her home but was often terrified if she couldn’t reach someone.

“I’m worried sick, it has really upset me, and I feel like I’m just not important to anyone,” my friend said, nearly in tears worrying about her mother, alone in her house with no phone or cell signal or cable, no way to ask for help or reach out to the world. My friend had called every official government agency – state, local, federal. But she spoke only to answering machines and was heard only by voicemail messages. No one had ever called her back.

“I feel like ordinary people just don’t matter anymore.” I suppose there is some truth to this, but I also know that raging on the phone to recordings and powerless functionaries will not help. We are called up to be grounded, stay grounded, to find our own God, and if necessary, create one. This was keeping her awake at night.

She spent  hour after hour on hold waiting to talk to the phone company. Sometimes they had a record of her calls, sometimes not, often they promised to send someone out but didn’t, often she stayed on hold for hours, or was disconnected. This was Orwell’s nightmare, the individual trapped inside of a powerful monolith that no one could ever reach or reason with. But that is our lives.

I was reminded of my own anger and frustration when I got a Facebook bill two months ago for more than $800 for an ad I never authorized and didn’t want or need. As a matter of principle, I was determined to force Facebook to confront the fact that it had software that could trigger and ad like this – this was the second time this had happened to me, and many other people I know – without the alleged user wouldn’t even knowing that the ad was running, let alone how much it would cost.

Finally, at Maria’s suggestion, I just paid the bill. It was really bothering me. And I needed the money for other things.

I need to use Facebook ads sometime for my work and I didn’t want to drag this out. I am sorry I caved in like that, but also glad to not be angry and frustrated. Someone at Facebook should have spoken to me, some one at one single government agency should have responded to me.

I believe in truth and justice, and in a government that does good. I  contacted several different agencies, including a U.S. Senator, three different federal and state agencies. I was never able to reach one single human being and eventually I contacted a half-dozen offices and agencies and no one called me back. It was getting to me, just as my friend’s confrontation with the phone company – clearly no longer paying attention to land-line customers in the cell age.

“I told them my mother could fall and die, her Lifeline wasn’t working either, it was connected to the phone. But nobody cared, there was nothing they could do, they said.” She was almost shaking as she told me this story.

So I resolved it in the best way I could, by doing the best I could for myself.

How to help my friend? I went online and searched through a dozen walkie-talkie manufacturers. I thought if there was not going to be phone service, how about a radio walkie-talkie, powered by conventional electricity, many with a range of up to 50 miles or more. My friend lived 12 miles from her mother.

“Oh my god,” I never thought of that, said my friend. She ordered one this morning. She called me to thank me.

I said I appreciated the call, but I asked her to do one or two more things for me, actually for herself.

What?, she asked.

“You need to get grounded,” I said. If you can ground yourself, you can navigate this difficult time in peace.

For me, I said, I began to get grounded when I stopped looking for my peace from others and found home – my idea of God – within myself. There were no answers for me from others, this is the world we live in, the world I love, I will not let others turn me into an uncaring, hateful or angry person.

I read somewhere, I said, that there are no roots firmer or more intimate or grounding than those between a mind and a body that have decided to be whole, and to remain human. Grace does not come from good times but from trouble, when we are forced by life to decide who we are, not just complain about others, most good people helpless to navigate our sometimes greedy and uncaring world.

If I hit a wall, I said, I walk around it. There is always another way, always a good person who wants to help. There is always a solution. Pray, meditate, walk in the woods, take a photo, step back from yourself. And talk to your mother on your new walkie-talkie. Don’t become what  you hate. That is the gift, every frustration and obstacle gives you the chance to be patient, clear, stronger.

My friend was crying now, she said she was just so relieved that someone finally thought to help her. A simple thing, I said, that is the point. You have to find your own idea of God and connect your mind to your body and decide to be whole, not to let the world break you into small pieces. It will do that if it gets the chance.

What a good thing this turned out to be for me, for even as I spoke, I felt the home within me, that I had worked so hard to build. Even Facebook could not take it a way from me, even though they took my money.

And I got to help a friend, which felt very good.