Live Vigilantly

I learned the term “hypervigilance” from a psychologist whose practice was full of adults who had learned habits of fear as children. They had lived on high alert because an unpredictable and abusive parent might strike out at any time, or because an adult’s anxiety made every situation seem fraught with dire possibilities. Hypervigilance is an all-too-common pathology—tragic in children and crippling in adults who haven’t found healing.

Vigilance, on the other hand, is an invigorating, life-sustaining quality shared by those whose instinct and training is to protect. “Be sober, be watchful,” we read in the liturgy for compline, “for your adversary the devil goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). Some translations substitute “vigilant” for “watchful.” I like that rendering, since it recalls the sacred practice of keeping vigil as so many have done as they sit with the dying, pray through the night before a significant feast day or impending crisis, stand outside prisons in silent protest lines, holding candles. The original meaning of the word includes not only watchfulness, but staying awake, being lively or active, staying strong. It’s a rich term for the kind of watchfulness that is full of intention and whole-hearted intelligence.

As the political tides turn in this country, and consequently around the world, many people are feeling a heightened sense of endangerment. Muslims, immigrants, people living at social and economic margins, people dependent on public services that may be defunded, children who internalize the half-understood fears of their elders are on higher alert. Those of us who don’t belong to the specifically targeted populations can keep vigil with them, watching the signs of the times, considering specifically and locally what protection might look like. Sanctuary campuses and churches, for instance, or increased giving to organizations that provide legal assistance, or simple acts of friendship and solidarity in public places when harassment happens.

It was heartening to read just yesterday of the response of store staff and customers to public harassment of a Muslim woman: when they heard the shouting people emerged from all over the store to stand with her, make sure she was safe as she bought her groceries, and walk her to the car. Awake, aware, and willing to act, they provided me with a valuable image of what it means to live vigilantly so that the vulnerable need not fall into chronic anxiety and hypervigilance.

Watching out for each other, noticing what needs to be noticed, waiting actively rather than passively for institutional changes and policy reform, and certainly watching over the little ones who are facing adult problems too soon, protecting their safety and their childhood, are good ways of keeping vigil, as the ancients did, “on the eve of a religious festival,” as an act of devotion to the God in whom we can, even in the midst of trouble, find our peace.