trace of elements

(Taken from a letter written to a friend …)

I understand the cyclic movement of change  requires the dissolution of what is in order to make room for the new. Gardening, history, archaeology, and geology, among other studies, require this awareness of movement. Archaeology in particular is a good lesson in the ebb and flow of civilizations and communities. 

I also understand that the dissolution is theoretical to most Americans if they haven’t experienced its effects through living in a precarious country or a war zone. The vast majority of Americans haven’t had those experiences, and they’re not affected by anything going on here yet. Nothing. Prices are still affordable, everything desired is still available in stores, the electrical grid is functioning, no masked men are beating your neighbor or busting down your door. Most Americans can’t really imagine, I’m betting, that they could wake one day to no working power grid, empty shelves and long lines for any sort of food in stores, armed men roaming the streets, stopping whomever they want, holding guns to heads, beating people up or taking money or raping a child or shooting a grandfather with no repercussions, courts impotent.

Some of us have known any or all of that and understand how thin the veneer of civilized cooperation can be, and how many lies that veneer masks: war vets, deep travelers, blacks and Asians and Latinos and American Indian tribal members, they may well know our familiar veneer of ideals covers repeated atrocities, and perceive true dangers sitting beneath what looks innocuous or safe.

I don’t have a problem with the breakdown of what was, because what’s breaking down is essentially the organization of a culture that was – at best – willing to turn a blind eye to its institutionalized racism, misogyny, injustice, arrogance, greed, etc. It has to be broken down, possibly – hopefully? – all the way to the ground in order for something better to be created.

What’s difficult for me is what feels like the blind stupidity of much of humanity that leads us to doing it in this way that generates more fear and violence, almost entirely still aimed at the most vulnerable. That’s my conceit: that I’m smarter than that and had no part in the vicious lies we’ve lived within. And it is a conceit.

Maybe because my conceit is visible to myself, I’m not willing to overlook the pain and fear that’s being created (or unleashed, or out pictured, or however it gets described) because the end will be good for humanity (it will). It’s my understanding that ignoring or overlooking that aspect is just one more example of the arrogant ignorance we as Americans have been basking in for 300 years. “Well, I can sit back and watch the show – I don’t have a dog in the race.” I think that through this process we’re all going to find out that we each do have a dog in this race, and that’s the point: we are all one, all related, and responsible to and for each other. “That which you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto me.” (Matt 25:40 – no, I’m not Christian but grew up in it. Quote me from your tradition in comments, pls)

Having friends involved in what’s going on in Minnesota does make these affairs feel different to me, but it shouldn’t.

I’m not intending to say, “if you don’t do things the way I think you should or want you to, you’re wrong and a problem” — I think we’re all going to meet what we need to meet, and we’ll each show up in the way we intend. I personally have to acknowledge the injustice, pain, and fear within the process of cyclic change or I feel that I’m lying to myself in ways that this country has lied to itself from the start, and I think I could be in danger of propagating the belief that those injustices and fears have nothing to do with me. That is never true; we are truly all one.

We all lift, or no one does.

If I were deeply true to my knowing, I don’t think I would live in this house. I wouldn’t have a savings account or investments, because it should be unthinkable to accumulate excess when there are people in need. I ponder this, worrying it, that the choices I make are less than true to what I know. So I can say all of the above and still know that as long as I don’t share my excess, I am part of the problem. There are many ways we won’t change without things being burnt to the ground around us, and if that’s what it takes, so be it. That conceit that I am smart enough to do it differently is exposed.

I gather humanity at night, holding us in pure love, the people who are in the way of the bulldozer of others’ fears, but also including the people with so much hate and pain and fear in their hearts that all they can do is hurt other people with it. I include those who have had the privilege of looking the other way, believing the injustices and pain are someone else’s business. And I include those who feel the pain and injustices as if they were their own, many of them shunning humanity for its unimaginable cruelty, unable to process the level of shared pain and sorrow that they feel. 

I’ve often found this culture to be difficult, ridiculous, and inhumane, so this is just one small rant … and a reminder to do my part as I see it, and to check my conceits.

I believe that we will all come to realize that we are responsible to and for each other, and that which is unimaginable now will come to be. In the meantime, I think it’s critical to be kind. I think it’s critical to care for and protect each other if at all possible, because – again – we are all related and responsible to and for each other.