“And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?” Jesus Christ, Mark 8:34-38.

It’s a curious thing, but sometimes when I look at the news and it seems things in our amazing  country are just getting worse and worse, I am struck by this odd realization that my life is just getting better and better. How can this be?

It is selfish of me to look at it this way, is it narcissistic and self-centered? I am well aware of the suffering and struggle in the world, I see it almost every day. In building my cathedral, I see that when I work with the refugees or the Mansion i feel good about myself, and my life. So, I see, does Maria.

I feel sometimes that many in our country are becoming angrier, more cruel and less forgiving.

As this happens, I find myself becoming less angry, more generous and increasingly empathetic.

It’s almost as if I am living in an inverted universe.

This does not make me a saint or superior in other way, it is the path I set out on as a response to the argument and divisions I see around me. It is my selfish way of staying grounded and hopeful and having a life of meaning.

As always, a Jew turned Quaker, I find myself turning often to the writings of the true Jesus Christ, I don’t worship him as  God, I admire him as the best kind of human, as one of many divine spirits and inspirations. Like the writing of Thomas Merton, his life gives me a framework for mine, even as I see many of the people who call themselves Christians have reinvented him to serve their political needs.

You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy,” Jesus said in Mathew 5:43-47. “But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way… For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else?”

This is a hard lesson for me in so many ways, I dislike my enemies and often am intolerant of them. I think of the people who message me all of the time saying they love to read my thoughts even though they often disagree with me, and I think if you only consider those who agree with you, what reward is there in that?

If I can only understand my friends and am only good to them, how am I different from anyone else?

My cathedral asks me to be different from other people, to find myself in doing good, and the Army of Good has surrounded me in a cloud of faith and purpose, the refugees and Mansion residents teach me the gift of caring and giving, and so there I am, feeling better as it sometimes seems as though things are only getting worse.

Every good deed I do chips away at my anger and resentment and regret, I grow and change ever day. Many small miracles for me.

In my mind, the world is not coming to an end, the Apocalypse is not here, our way of life is not about to end. I remember that everyone who disagrees with me or dislikes me or rages about me believes in the justice of their own cause. We all think we are the righteous and the good, and who am I to say it isn’t so?

The sun does shine on all of us, the evil and the good, and we are all called to follow our own light and our own truth. Sometimes, when I read the news, as I did this morning, I play a kind of game, an exercise in empathy: what if all of the people who disagree with and who trouble me are right? How can I stand in their own shoes and see the world as they see it? Sometimes I can do it, sometimes I can’t.

It always settles me and keeps me steady to try.

The refugee retreat was a joy, and it was also exhausting and draining, harder than I imagine to pull together and more demanding than I thought. But the feeling of doing good lifts me up above all of that and  refreshes. I am tired in the head and soul.

This morning, life intrudes. Maria broke her glasses, and she is a world champion procrastinator, she always wants to do her art. I’ve finally persuaded her – she hates being told what to do, especially by men –  to go to the optometrist today and get new glasses before our trip to Salem, Mass., this weekend for her birthday.

This will be a good transitional trip for me, making the turn from the intensity of the refugee retreat back into the unpredictable yet reassuring rhythms of life. Back to life.