A Time To Yawp

The US and Israel – no, say Trump and Netanyahu acting without their countries’ knowledge or permission – have attacked Iran.  No one will miss the Ayatollah, but many will miss the 148+ elementary school girls killed in the strikes.  This is classic Trump:  Act in the middle of the night on a weekend before Congress can convene to vote on it, back down grudgingly if ordered to do so…but the damage is already done.  Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, except he doesn’t even ask for forgiveness.  Two old men have destabilized a region already held together with prayer and duct tape, cueing up consequences that they do not know are coming and are ill-equipped to deal with.

Meanwhile, Kansas’ government has attacked the state’s transgender residents.  With the stroke of a pen, thousands of human beings were trapped in place as their driver’s licenses were invalidated on the spot.  With thousand-dollar fines and jail time hanging over their heads, they don’t dare even drive to the DMV for new ones.  And even if they did make it to the DMV, they would be outed as trans and couldn’t safely use the restroom for fear of being sued.  The lawsuits have been filed and the law will almost certainly be struck down…but again, the damage is already done.  Meanwhile, other states – and the federal government – are taking notes.

Also, ICE continues to terrorize the American landscape as they beat every bush and kick down every door in search of Black and Brown people to arrest and throw into concentration camps.

And OpenAI has cheerfully agreed to do for the Pentagon what Anthropic would not.

And what, in the hell, can we do about all of this?  We can protest, we can boycott, we can pressure our legislatures and denounce our leaders, we can donate to the ACLU and other groups in a position to effect some change, but all of it seems so useless when the bombs start dropping and the neighbors are disappeared.

But we have to do it anyway – stand up against it and do what we can.  Because our acts of resistance, however small and pointless they may seem, will join together with others’ acts like threads joined into cloth.  Cloth can be cut into banners, and banners can draw people together, and people acting together is the only way that anything changes.

The poet Walt Whitman once wrote, “I sound my barbaric yawp across the rooftops of the world.”  Now is the time for all of us to keep yawping – publicly, clandestinely, or both.  Nothing may change at first, but resistance is like vines on a wall…sooner or later, they will pull the wall down.  And something greener and better will take its place.

Braving Ice and ICE

It is snowing an inch an hour as I type, with over a foot expected. Air temperature is 15 degrees Fahrenheit with negative windchills. The power remains on so far, but we have readied ourselves against its possible loss. In the northern half of the US, fierce winters are a norm, a natural phenomenon to be endured.

Meanwhile, in fierce Minnesota, ICE has murdered another human being and is telling bald-faced lies about the circumstances. The current regime is destroying our long-held democracy – or illusion of democracy – and replacing it with the human-on-human brutality that is also a norm. Cynically speaking, we are tribal primates brandishing weapons. It has always been so. Will it be so forever?

The difference between snowstorms and human brutality lies in whether or not we accept the latter as inevitable. We can do nothing about snowstorms, but we could improve upon our human nature if we really wanted to. Over the centuries, we have improved, somewhat, in fits and spurts, despite ourselves. How? By critical masses of humans who envision a better way and do what they can to make it happen.

Right now in Minnesota the community has braved both ice and ICE, resisting occupation by forming community networks and making it clear that they will not simply roll over beneath the boots of the regime. Right now I prepare to put on a winter coat and boots and clear our sidewalks for the first of several times today, working to stay ahead of the storm as it’s easier to clear a few inches than it is to clear a foot. Both they and we refuse to be buried by forces beyond our control.

Perhaps that is the first step towards building a survivable world.

Wisdom 101

I have a recurring dream about being back in college.  I wander around campus, knowing that I am missing classes, but not sure of what my schedule is or even what classes I’m taking.  I only know that, whatever they are, I’m falling further and further behind and am in danger of flunking out.  I’m told that I am not alone in having this dream, or something similar. 

For a long time I didn’t understand what this dream is trying to tell me.  But now, I think it has something to do with not being sure of what I need to know or where and how to learn it.  In this increasingly mad world, how do I survive, let alone thrive? And how can I help others do the same? This insight has not given me any answers.  But it has given me a question to ask, and questioning is the first step in finding answers. 

The Hebrew Bible says that “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”.  But the Hebrew word for “fear” doesn’t mean being terrified; it’s more along the lines of “respect”.  And, although the Bible speaks of “the Lord” as a very specific entity, I have come to think of it as a bigger, less personal understanding that we are not the center of the universe, that it’s not all about us, and that we make meaning out of our lives by seeking a way to work with the living force rather than against it.  So if I were to loosely translate that phrase, I would say:  Respect for the All is the beginning of wisdom.

How does one respect the All? That’s for us to figure out as we go along.  It will look different for everyone.  For me, it means figuring out what my next lesson is and walking through the classroom door.  Perhaps that will be helpful to you.  In any case, I wish you well on your journey.  Perhaps we’ll find ourselves in class together.

When Run Or Hide Is Not An Option

I never expected the USA to become the Fourth Reich, but here we are on the knife edge of it, and no one can remain neutral. ICE is going door to door in Minnesota, warrants be damned, and shooting anyone who gets in their way. Trump has plastered his name and portrait all over DC. Private prison owners are making money hand over fist as people are disappeared into pop-up “detention centers” (the new term for “concentration camps’) regardless of citizenship. The Constitution was designed to prevent things like this, but its framers for all their foresight could not foresee the perfect storm of malice and fecklessness that has brought this present moment to fruition.

Mass shooter survival drills teach us that there are three responses when the guns start firing: Run, Hide, or – when the first two options are not possible – Fight. This training translates to the present moment, and which option we choose depends largely on who and where we are. Members of targeted populations may need to grab their passports and run if they can, or take measures to hide if they can’t. The rest of us need to fight. Not with guns – that’s stupid and suicidal and would get us nowhere – but with our wits. We need to take stock of what we can and can’t do. Are we able to take to the streets? Are we in a position to donate to organizations with the power to do something? Do we have a platform from which to share our words? Can we form local communities? No one can do everything, it’s been said, but everyone can do something.

The last time we had to resist this level of evil, there were front-line soldiers/sailors/airmen whose bravery and sacrifice are deservedly well-known. But they did not operate in a vacuum. Behind the lines, another army of cooks, suppliers, doctors, nurses, laundry-doers, and other support staff operated tirelessly. And behind them, ordinary citizens paid taxes, made munitions, did without so the front-line forces didn’t have to, and went about their lives with a determination from which all resistance grew. We are not at that level of conflict – yet – but we can look back, study, and learn in hopes of preventing it from getting that far, or, that failed, knowing our individual roles and doing them.

It’s scary times. But those of us whose ancestors were living in the US eighty years ago are the descendants of warriors. Let’s do our best to act like it.

Butterflies And Hurricanes

This morning, as is my habit, I watched a YouTube video made by a kind Buddhist monk who speaks messages of love and peace. Then I watched some footage of the Buddhist monks who are currently walking across the Southern US from Texas to DC, spreading their own message of peace. Then I pulled up the news to discover that the US attacked Venezuela in the night, capturing its President, Nicolas Maduro, and bringing him back to the US to stand trial on drug trafficking charges. Maduro is…problematic, but this action feels to me like one dictator being swallowed up by a bigger dictator in a case of Might Makes Right. It’s one more act of war in a war-infested world. And it makes it hard to keep the monks’ messages of peace in mind.

How do we hang onto peace in violent times? It’s like holding a fragile flower in our hands and trying to protect it from a hurricane. It seems difficult, even impossible. But there are hints and glimpses of ways in which it can be done. Today, for me, the answer lies in observing the walking monks.  They are not angry, they are not protesting anything – they are simply being, showing and telling us that there is a better way. And – here is the hope – their message is catching on. People are coming out in droves to line their route, cheer them on, and learn from them. They are being shared across social media and reported on by local news stations. They are a reminder that darker forces may destroy people and nations, but they can’t destroy an idea whose time has come.

People have spoken of small actions using the metaphor of a butterfly moving her wing in the Amazon and affecting the movement of a hurricane thousands of miles away. I have no control over how my tax dollars are used, but I do have control over how I exist in the world. I can sit and consume terrible news with bitten nails and lead in my stomach and hatred in my heart, or I can move through my days wishing peace upon all the beings I encounter, and behave towards them accordingly. I used to think that this mindset was a Pollyanna cop-out, but I am beginning to think that it is an act of resistance. In a world full of bombs, be a butterfly.

Perhaps, if there are enough of us, we can move the hurricane.

Hold A Small Candle

Like almost every other person in my North American culture, I am feeling a little bittersweet this holiday season. Christmas at age 57 isn’t Christmas at 37, or 17, or 7.  There is little left of the warm bright people-filled holidays, squealing children, wrapping paper piled everywhere, parties with candles and laughter and delicious food, dinners with loved ones around a long table.  Perhaps all of that exists for other 57-year-olds, but my Christmas is much smaller and quieter than those gone before.  People are missing.  Presents, while nice, aren’t such a big deal.  Beloved traditions are piled in memory’s attic, never to be retrieved. 

As the Buddhists calmly say, all things are impermanent and discontent is universal. So those of us going through this year’s holidays with holes in our hearts and pockets have a choice:  Will we let our joy leak out of those holes and spill onto cold ground, leaving us empty? Or will we direct our joy into the pools of that which is still good? Because there is still good to be found – or made – even in the smallest things.  If absolutely nothing else, we can step outside and look up at the sky, thank the winter sun for rising and setting, make out the constellations that tell the story of human imagination, and find a small piece of timelessness to carry like a candle within ourselves. 

At their heart, the winter holidays are snapshots of moments as they come and go.  Whoever, wherever, and however we are in these days, we have made it through another year, and a new year lies before us.  May we hold our small candles, and find our way forward.

Evolving Despite Ourselves

MLK Jr Day and Juneteenth have been removed from the schedule of fee-free entry days at US national parks, while Flag Day (also Trump’s birthday) has been added.  “DEI” books – meaning, any that feature non-white, non-male people – have been banned from national park gift shops.  Libraries in Tennessee have shut down while officials purge them of LGBTQIA+ books.  An Oklahoma University professor has been placed on leave for giving a student’s paper a failing grade after she claimed “religious discrimination”.  I could go on and on.  The US is experiencing a culture-war wave that ranges from Orwellian to McCarthyist to just plain petty.   It’s maddening. 

But this is not new in our history, and history shows us that it won’t last forever.  In the 1850s, pro-slavery officials seemed to be cemented into place forever in both Congress and the White House, but ten years later slavery was abolished.  McCarthyism gave way to the cultural revolution of the 1960s.  Marginalized people have gained ground in fits and spurts – there’s a long way to go, but progress has been made.  And no matter how hard the current regime tries to roll that progress back, it won’t succeed, because diversity, equity, and inclusion have been imprinted onto too many American souls.  You can burn books, hell, you can even burn people, but you can’t burn an idea that has taken hold. 

I have quipped at times that humans are basically monkeys hitting each other over the head with rocks – not quite scientifically correct, but you get the idea.  Tribalism, aggressiveness, hierarchy, and pressure to conform run deep within us.  But so does altruism, cooperation, and innovation.  Whether we are book burners or book readers depends largely on which set of instincts we choose to nurture within ourselves.  It is my observation – and my hope, even in dark times – that there are enough people who choose the better ones to move us forward.

It may take many more generations, but I believe we will evolve.

Past, Present, Future

I was forty years old when I started this blog.  A lot happens in seventeen years, so reading my earliest posts is like reading the words of an entirely different person, and to be honest, a lot of it is cringey.  In recent years I toyed with deleting this blog altogether – cut it out of my life and move on – but a wise man said that you can’t do a past-ectomy.  The people we’ve been, the selves who somehow managed to live their way into the here and now, will always be with us, for ill but also for good. 

The past informs our present; the present shapes our future.  Our bit of time is not a number line, but rather, a chrysalis of interconnected moments in which we live, always changing, always becoming.  We do not always have control over what happens to us.  In fact, due to the vagaries of brain chemistry, we do not always have control over our own thoughts and actions.  But we do have overall control over what we use our past to become.  We can become something beautiful, something monstrous, or – like so many things in nature – a combination of both. 

Ancient Egyptians believed that when people died, the gods weighed their hearts against a feather, and where their souls went depended on whether they weighed more or less.  Those gods may be relegated to history now, but the wisdom carries forward.  Don’t fight with the past, don’t deny it.  Keep it as reference instead.  It just might show us the right way forward, so that when the time comes to leave this life, we can face the feather without fear.

Holy Days, Holy Nights

It is Thanksgiving morning, 5:52am, dark, and the wind outside our window is making the air bitterly cold. “Fall fell,” as I once heard someone say – brown leaves frozen in haphazard piles beneath skeletal trees. Between 5:30pm and 7:00am, it is full dark, and the time of darkness is still lengthening. Increasing numbers of people are falling victim to seasonal depression. This happens every year, but experience does not make some things any easier. Small wonder, then, that our holiday season starts now.

Those of us with European ancestry are descended from people who chose their holy days for ancient reasons – the bringing-in of the harvest, a last feast before the hunger times, a marking of the solstice, and so forth. But perhaps they also chose this season as a way to beat back the darkness and depression that the long nights bring. There is something holy about gathering with others to share food and drink around a fire, laughing even when the windchill is below zero, recognizing that we are all in this together and together we will make it through. Our heat may come through furnaces, our feast may come from the grocery store, and our “fire” may burn in the form of multicolor lights in and on our houses, but the instinct is the same: Beat back the darkness.

But as for myself, I have learned to navigate the long nights by embracing the darkness. Every early morning I layer up and walk the dog through the dark neighborhood, my footfalls the only thing heard in the profound silence. I open my arms to the wind and let the cold on my face remind me that I’m alive (and I’ll take it over 90s and humid any day). I realize that Thanksgiving, Yule, and New Year’s Day may be holy days, but so is every day and every night. “Holy” has a religious connotation, but more broadly it means “set apart”, deliberately noticed, chosen for special reverence.

The idea that ordinary days and nights are holy is hardly new. But it is worth keeping in mind. Doing so makes the cold darkness bearable…and, perhaps, even welcomed for a time as a natural partner in the round dance of our seasons. Knowing this, we can walk in peace beneath Orion and know that our days – and nights – are holy.

Under the Rising Sun

The good thing about having a dog is that it gets you off your screens and out of the house. Every early morning, whether I feel like it or not, I put on my coat and hat, wrestle a harness onto our joyfully wiggling dog, step out the door into the cold, and walk along the quiet streets of our little coal patch town. I have become intimately familiar with the locations of every tree, bush, fire hydrant, and telephone pole along our varied routes. I have developed the habit of saying hello to the last stars visible in the lightening sky. I have learned where all the neighborhood dogs live as they bark their heads off while we’re walking past their yards. I have rejoiced in the sparkle of frost beneath the street lights and the silhouettes of trees against the indigo sky. I have spoken welcome to every sunrise.

I have also studied the houses we pass by, noting who likes to decorate their porches and yards, and who puts their Christmas lights up early and leaves them on all night, and who probably lives in a hoarder house, and who favors the big beefy pickup trucks that push out from their parking spaces halfway into the street. I wonder about the people who live in those houses. All of us under the rising sun are different from one another: Different jobs, abilities, education levels, voting histories, values, and so forth. But all of us are also the same – caring for our loved ones, keeping up our houses as best we can, and trying to get by in a society where life is difficult for the poor and the lower middle class. Trying, like every other living thing, to survive in a world indifferent to our survival.

Our little coal patch town is a microcosm of live-and-let-live, where most neighbors are decent to one another and incendiary politics give way to truce. It’s a tiny oasis of peace in a loudly polarized nation. It’s a place where very ordinary people have something to teach. Turn off the TV, close Facebook, go outside and walk our dogs already. The November air is cold and clear. The sun rises like always. The drivers wave as they pass. In these quiet, fleeting moments, it is possible to almost see a way forward.

Or at least find some beauty as we go.