Tag Archives: hope

The Sleeping Giant Awakes

It’s rare that we get an archetype as pure as Trump. He’s the apotheosis of greed, its avatar. The brutality, the swagger, the cold-heartedness, the deliberate and constant lying, all to feed his enormous ego: he’s the logical conclusion of basing a culture on the worship of wealth.

How clear does it have to get? Everything about him is so over the top, we hang on to every sliver of breaking news in horrified fascination. This is the worst of America. This is capitalism gone rancid.

Trump is a bully. His answer to everything is to threaten. He’s a spoiled brat who has always cheated to get what he wants, and has never suffered the consequences. He believes that other people are stupid, and his people keep proving him right.

And yet the man has done us a favor. He has shocked us awake.

Democracy is the sleeping giant in America. Theoretically, the government belongs to the people it serves. Theoretically, we can elect representatives to safeguard our interests instead of just shunting more of our wealth to the rich. But 40% of us don’t vote.

Non-voters are largely working class, the very class that has increased productivity and yet lost ground economically ever since the Reagan era. These people have come to believe that all politicians are alike, both parties are owned by large corporations, and their own votes would change nothing. There is just enough truth in these beliefs to make them self-reinforcing. If you don’t believe change is possible, you don’t try to change anything.

In spite of the complete disorganization of the Left, once Trump was elected, women, people of color, immigrants, students, teachers and their friends began to fill our streets in protest. COVID-19 put a stop to street demonstrations. But resistance to Trump’s oligarchy continues online, in ways quite separate from politics as usual. The Democratic party is not organizing protest. Nobody is. It’s happening anyway.

Unfettered greed in the form of anything-goes capitalism has not only ruined millions of lives but is quickly making the earth uninhabitable. When we recognize the crisis, we shake off passivity and begin to fight.

Trump is what happens when Americans abdicate our responsibility. We have been asleep at the wheel. We have to take back control of our country, grab that wheel and change direction. If we don’t stop the greed-heads from running our country, they will run it right over the cliff.

Trump is a symbol of everything this country has done wrong. Democracy is the hope that we can make things right.

Tomorrow

We’re not flying? Good.
We’re working from home? Good.
Soon money will run low and we’ll stop shopping. Good. As long as we can get enough to eat.

There are so many not-good, very bad, seriously horrible things about this pandemic. And not much of an up-side; but it does exist, and maybe it helps a little to think about that.

We’re depending on neighbors.
We’re helping the sick. We’re sacrificing to protect others. We understand that people matter more than anything. Good.

We’re staying home, keeping physical distance, trying to save lives. We’re letting nonviolent offenders out of prison. The unsustainable economy of limitless growth is stalling. Good. Limitless growth is not health; it’s cancer.

We might even stop over-fishing and let the ocean repopulate.

We’re using less fossil fuels. Pollution is dropping. We knew we had to reduce our carbon footprint to be able to moderate and survive climate change. We did not imagine this would be the way to achieve it. Maybe, though, knowing it was necessary might have prepared us to take the steps we have recently taken to moderate and survive COVID-19.

We will need to rebuild when the worse of this crisis is over. With luck and sufficient global consciousness, we will build a greener, more equitable, kinder world.

Now is the time to rethink everything.

I believe in creativity.

I believe in the human imagination.

I believe in working together. I believe we’re in crisis and we need to save ourselves. I believe we have to save ourselves together.

I believe I mess up all the time and so do you. I believe we’re not so different. I believe if we took the time we would understand each other. I believe we never completely understand ourselves.

I believe we’re in too much of a hurry. I believe the situation is urgent and we must act. If we stop doing some things, I believe that is doing something.

I believe that what each of us does is very important. I believe it is more important to be good to other people than to be beautiful or rich or famous. I believe in loving-kindness.

I believe we are just learning to become human. We’re like bees just figuring out how to build a hive.

I believe in the beauty of all that is, the far-flung stars and all the life that ever was or will be.

I hope we can figure out how to be human in time to survive.

I believe we already know what we have to do. I believe we are doing it.

Questions for a Dark Time

What if you wake up one morning
and peace is outside your window
walking, speaking, running
like a river,
what will you do?
Will you go out and kiss its feet,
which are working feet,
will you stand and watch
or will you join it
in your own time, like a duck
meeting other ducks in a river

What if you wake up one morning
and peace is inside your heart
Will you call the papers
Will you have a cigarette
How will you say hello to
the first person you see

What if you wake up one morning
and war is outside your window
hurting and killing the way it does,
racing like a forest fire,
what will you do?
Will you join it like
a stick of kindling
Will you watch
like the eye of a potato
Will you get dressed and
go to work with
peace in your heart
like a duck
meeting other ducks in the river

Gentle Spirits

Gentle spirits, sisters and brothers of the dream,
keepers of the light of loving-kindness, you who are
soft-hearted, open-minded, amazed to be here,
whom this world fills with delight and horror,
living hearts, tender spirits
I conjure thee, I seek thee, I implore thee
Arise, awake, shake off despair, remember
how many times has the Mysterious entered our lives,
how many times have we felt and seen the rush of great
winds around and through us
Remember how little we know ourselves, and take comfort
Remember from what vast sources loving springs,
and seek ye one another.

More is happening than we see on the six o’clock news.
They haven’t pinned it down, this slippery Tao. No one
owns it, no one controls it, but something big is
happening and it happens in small ways
(every wall you break) (every mind you shake)
Come out, come out, wherever you are
Remember the waves of hope that lifted our hearts above the
bloody tides of other days, remember when you think that
evil has won, how many hearts refuse it
Or will you believe those who say we do not exist?
Be of good courage, rejoice, lift up your voices, call out
in the darkness, we are here, we live, we believe in
the power of loving
Speak, shine, arise and listen
In many voices, hearts are crying to one another.

Gentle spirits, have you noticed
how zoos are different now? And safaris, and whaling?
Some old hard things are dying; and how new things are
tender, how when a seed sprouts it’s awhile before
coming to light
There are cracks in this concrete civilization, there is
full sunlight before us, though we are yet in the dark,
there is a path for the heart to follow
Arise, awake, when we have grown big enough we shall find one another,
We are scattered by God’s hand, we are watered by the
tears of all who suffer, we take strength from Earth our mother
Though you no longer believe in the possibility of humans
learning to care for one another, when you care you move
closer to the light
In the dark, alone, growing,
Speak
I can feel the earth tremble around the seeking crown of your head

The love we depend on is common as air, mysterious as light
Brothers and sisters
I look forward to seeing you again.

Field Report from Alice T4

These human beings have donned thick hulls.
Within memory they came out raw and slow, and stayed long in the sun.
Now they are visible from time to time
scurrying between their burrows and their borrowed shells
on their way to or from their holes in the main hive.

They still war. There are spotty mass die-outs.
They leave large areas barren and desolate.
From their nests emerge mighty songs.
The rest of us are compelled to listen;
there is no place far away from them.

But their children, and certain mutant colonies,
show that they possess an innate sense of harmony
along with the five senses that they recognize;
that they can function in and help maintain
green heavily specied areas.
They are beginning to mind their manners at watering places.

Their population curve has rounded a corner;
the dizzying rate of climb is bending
toward a plateau on which others might live.

They seem to do everything they need to do
by the skin of their teeth,
the nails on the tips of their fingers, and tails
they don’t even have.
I am amused and horrified,
wheeling hysterically among them,
along for the ride.

Neo-Optimism

Anyone who pays attention to the world has got to despair.  Our dominant culture admires violence and promotes greed. We see where these values have gotten us.

I wouldn’t trust anybody who hasn’t felt that despair. Hope comes later, if it comes at all. If the world has not struck you with horror, you haven’t looked at the way it is.

If we continue on our path of greed and violence, our species clearly will not survive. The imbalance of power between the few who benefit and the many who suffer seems overwhelming. No hero has arisen who can bring about real change. We have plenty of information, but no answers.

In our greed and short-sightedness, we have used the resources of earth as though they are infinite. Our species devours everything in its path. We destroy the wild creatures and flora of the earth. We suck the earth’s juices and then crunch its bones. The losses mount exponentially.

If all we ever did was destroy, our species would not deserve to survive. In fact we could not have survived this far.  Without kindness and caring, no human would live past infancy. Loving is so much in the background of our lives that we hardly even notice it. We must remember that love – or perhaps we should think of it as common decency – is also part of ordinary human behavior, and, even in our current diseased society, it is the largest part.

We should also remember that we have changed our paths countless times, all over the world and in every era. We are finding our way through a wilderness of the spirit, and no one has been this way before.

We have always used our ingenuity to cope with changing environments. We can live under the sea and in outer space. We share ways to cope. We invent. We imagine. We merge our individual imaginings with others and make them reality.

This is the challenge: to imagine a world in which humanity can thrive, and to make it happen. We don’t seem likely to rise to this challenge. Yet the unlikely often happens.

Fresh currents continue to bubble up through the festering swamp of our culture. In recent years there have been the Occupy movement, climate change marches, peace vigils, “Black Lives Matter” die-ins, rallies for democracy and free speech. The organizers think they are fighting separate battles. But when we begin to recognize that our battlefields may be separate but our war is the same, we will find allies we never expected. We will find that we are much stronger than we thought.

That is when we will begin to be dangerous. That is why the dominant culture insists that we compete with one another, each cause fighting all the others for members, media attention, and money. Once we begin to cooperate instead, the powers that be will become the powers that used to be.

The only possible real revolution is nonviolent revolution. No other kind of movement can bring real change. Violence isn’t change. Violence is just more of the same damned thing. Nor can revolution bring change if it harms the innocent, because injustice is also more of the same damned thing. Peace and justice: now that would be a true revolution.

So go ahead and despair. Things are pretty dark right now.  Just try not to take it so personally. It isn’t you. It’s all of us. Your despair is a sign that deep inside you, a hero is waiting to be born.

The despair you feel is only natural, and you have a right to feel it, for exactly as long as you need to. Then get over it. Look for reasons to keep going and you will find them, in art, in nature, in children, in the people you love. Don’t turn away from the world because it is ugly and cruel. Keep moving, because it is also beautiful, and everything we love is in danger.

We have a lot of work to do. You have a part in this work, a part no one else can play.  We need you, exactly you, with your terrible history and your broken heart. Despair is one step on the path forward. You will like the next one better. Stick around, so you can take it.

After you realize the odds are against our survival, and after you give up hope that we can beat the forces that keep us on the path to destruction, you might one day realize that the game is not over yet. You will no longer be an optimist who thinks all will be well. You will be a neo-optimist, who has gone through despair and come out the other side understanding that all will most likely be lost. You will know this species is the darkest of dark horses. And you will bet on that horse to win.

Where we are

Are you a “non-essential worker”? Then slow down. Give yourself a break. Unless you’re a healthcare professional, now is not a time to rush.

For the worst reason, we have a chance to stop what we’ve been doing. We needed to stop doing some things anyway. Let’s take advantage of this opportunity.

We’ve stopped doing work that did not need to be done. We’ve stopped driving to jobs we can do at home. We’ve stopped hopping all over the planet like fleas on a dog. We’ve stopped thinking money is the most important thing.

Once we make ourselves and loved ones as safe as possible, let’s try to get over the panic. We stay at home. We wait. We are, as the Buddhists say, sitting with our fear.

When we sit with our fear long enough, it will begin to fade. Then we will be able to think.

We are this Web

We are the sum of our minds.

This new creature, Humanity, is a collective, as all complex organisms are collectives of smaller beings. Most life is collaboration.

We think that because our bodies are separate, our minds are too. But they’re not. They leak. They spread. The ripples of our thoughts rock the world.

Imagine there’s a thin bright line between you and a person you’re close to. Now imagine that person moves. The line connecting you moves with them.

Imagine there’s a line like that between you and every person you meet. The line stretches but never disappears so long as both of you exist.

Imagine the world as a web of these lines, these human connections. That is who we are. That web. That net.