The metaphor du jour for me today is tsunami. Doesn’t it appear we’re all living through one? Every day now, it seems, those of us who are awake and alert to current events are hit by increasingly tall, crashing waves of horrifying news that leave us gasping and nearly broken. 

 (Stock image from Pixabay)

As ever, I grope for metaphors as though they were life rafts.

Real tsunamis (from the Japanese word meaning “harbor wave”) are colossal ocean waves caused by earthquakes or volcanic eruptions under the sea. Tsunami waves can reach as tall as a ten-story building, travel up to 500 miles per hour, and stretch more than 60 miles long. They give little warning. The official advice is: RUN TO HIGH GROUND RIGHT AWAY. (Watch this short video on what to do: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Sk-4Wcrfcoc .)

Using my tsunami-metaphor for what we’re experiencing now from the onslaught of horrendous news that’s flattening our spirits to the point of near despair, I’d say we’d be wise to seek higher spiritual ground right away. 

For me – and perhaps all my fellow English majors as well – this higher ground can be found in great literature, fine poetry, and sacred texts. (Other majors may well gravitate to other high roads, equally efficacious, but I’m not as familiar with them.) 

Now is the time — to give only one small example — to read, or reread, Victor Hugo’s 1862 masterpiece Les Miserables to gain, or regain, a better perspective on things. Now is the time to memorize whole or parts of poems that serve to mobilize or uplift the spirit, such as this portion from Sylvia Plath’s poem “Channel Crossing,” which has always inspired me:

… what better way to test taut fiber 

Than against this onslaught, these casual blasts of ice  

That wrestle with us like angels; the mere chance 

Of making harbor through this racketing flux 

Taunts us to valor. …

Now is the time to open our little leather-bound Bibles or tattered paperback copies of the Koran (like the one I read and reread when I lived in predominantly Muslim Mali, West Africa, for three years nearly thirty years ago) and review the underlined passages that once buoyed our spirits and promise to do so again now in these tumultuous times. 

Like the Psalms of the great and beloved King David of the Old Testament, always beseeching his God for help and strength:

“Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For thou has been a shelter for me, and a strong tower… ” (Psalm 61:1-3).

I’m reminded of the old hymn, “Higher Ground,” that I used to sing in church when I was a teen, the refrain of which was then etched on my brain:

Lord, lift me up and let me stand 

By faith on heaven’s table land 

A higher plane than I have found 

Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.

(Hear the whole hymn here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueDwRMtJCfg&list=RDueDwRMtJCfg )

This flight to higher ground is not an abandonment of our responsibilities to help others in need. On the contrary, it’s the only way we can proceed. Once our spirits are renewed and restored, we can take whatever positive actions we choose to take. Think of flight attendants’ instructions in case of emergency: Put on your own oxygen mask first in order to be able to assist those beside you. Think of the peaceful spiritual power of the Black church led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., during the Civil Rights movement in the U.S. in the ‘60s.

The countless catastrophes we’re facing on the news and in our lives these days – the crumbling democracies, rising authoritarianism, climate crises, technological threats; the cruelty, inhumanity, and injustices coming at us in colossal waves – are too big for most of us to grasp yet impossible to ignore or deny. We need, I believe, to reach up higher, to whatever Higher Power we recognize, by whatever name we use (writer Anne Lamott calls her conception of God “Gus” – for the “Great Universal Spirit”) for help. That is, if we really want to survive.

Now is the time.

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Please share your own methods of reaching higher ground in the Comments for all WOW readers to benefit from. All thoughts and suggestions are more than welcome!