11-12-16

The Light of My Life

I don't know enough about politics or political demographics to ruminate about what happened this past Tuesday that made Donald Trump the next President of the United States and Hillary Clinton a historical figure. I know more about the longings of the human heart and that is what I want to write about today.

It seems the shock of Trump's victory was as startling to some of his supporters as to his opponents. The bewilderment was evenly spread among us and stemmed from the fact that someone so little schooled in history and the mechanics of governance and someone so personally and openly crude and cruel could ascend to the highest office in our land. We had, indeed, become numb to his bombast and vitriol over so many months and as a result had not really considered what it would mean if he became the 45th President.

When it was clear that he had won the presidency, emotional turmoil and trauma were visible among those whom he had mocked and demeaned for so long and for many others whose perceptions of stability had been shattered.  If it is true that those who thought of themselves as voiceless found a champion in Trump, it is equally true that millions of others in different minority categories whom Trump demonized have been voiceless in their opposition to what he stands for. Why should that be when the stakes for remaining silent are so high? How much fear does it take to draw back and hide? I don't think it takes much fear at all. Fear is a human emotional default. It takes energy and will to be courageous. A little fear of exposure goes a long way in how we respond to confrontation or criticism. We do have experience with resistance built into our history. Our nation was born from the throes of resistance to perceived wrongs. We have had demonstrations and movements associated with some of the most important social experiments in our history. While many of them have been in the spirit of minority causes, such as women's suffrage and civil rights, all of us have benefited from their ultimate absorption into our national character. The sacrifices of others have cemented rights and benefits for all of us. We are in debt to those whose vision of a better future for everyone drove them to the sacrifices they made.

These times of turmoil and trauma will be no different. What is happening today is a response to the descent of a darkening veil of intolerance, racism, sexism, misogyny, and violence as political coercion. There haven't been voices of opposition heard until now because the presumption of civility and common decency was part of what we thought of as the foundation of our civic conversation. We thought we had fought important battles and were prepared to go forward with the social progress all of us enjoyed, building on what we shared, albeit facing difficult issues and extremes of persuasion.  The campaign and the election have uncovered festering sores of complaint, disaffection, suspicion, bigotry, and outright hate. While some may claim a political victory, all of us have before us a torn civic fabric. No one wins when hate and violence are accepted forms of personal interactions upon which our nation depends for stability.

The gaps in our national community are wider today than before the election. It is my impression that what will happen now is that small communities will be formed and energized by common bonds of affection. These communities might be book clubs, breast cancer support groups, congregations of the faithful, even family gatherings. All of us will discover that our communities overlap and that our voices are heard among several or many of them. We will begin to listen better to one another because we will trust the support we find in them. We will feel safe in ways we don't now because we will have joined in a union of support. The accumulation of support and trust will build over time, but it will always be based on how safe we feel inside ourselves. Gandhi said: "Be the change you wish to see in the world." Personal change sets the stage for other transformations large and small.

In these past several post-election days, a campaign (another campaign?) has arisen from the grass roots to reach out to one another to offer safety. The symbol of that support is the simple safety pin. It holds things together and it can bring ragged edges of the social fabric into juxtaposition until more permanent mending can occur. When worn, it signifies to the "other" that s/he is in the presence of one who offers safety. I believe that this simple sign has the potential to lift a corner of the darkening veil. Of what uses can we make of such a simple thing? Isn't this what they used to use to diaper babies? Isn't this, plus duct tape, what can hold and repair just about everything? Is this what they mean when they refer to "underpinnings"?

Leonard Cohen died just after the election. He was someone who experienced the darkening veils of his own life and yet was able to make music because of and in spite of them. In his oft-quoted lyrics he says:

   "Ring the bells that still can ring.
   Forget your perfect offering.
   There is a crack in everything.
   That's how the light gets in."

They echo my own experience with darkness. There always seems to be a crack in the darkness through which a splinter of light can escape. This seems especially poignant this week with all its disappointing surprises. My late adulthood has been suffused with the world and the work of compassion. For a while it seemed to have served me well. I have had light shine through cracks I didn't recognize at first. For someone who has never been comfortable in the front lines of social action and demonstrations, I have been happy with the quieter and more subtle forms of compassion. But the events of these past many months and the past week have made it clearer that compassion is necessary for social cohesion and intimate care, but it isn't sufficient. What I hear now is a call to compassionate advocacy. Feeling compassionate is not the same as acting compassionately. When one abandons one's own closeted security and steps into dark corners, then the slivers of light can be seen. The dark corners of cancer care, of hospice, of oppressive places of work, of abusive households, of complaint and unearned privilege, are all places where the creative experimental work and practice of compassionate advocacy can come alive. If the lowly safety pin can point us out to one another, then let us wear the pins on our tattered fabrics. Let us see if millions of safety pins can hold the worn and stressed fabric of our Republic together. Let us see if one safety pin can bring us into closer relationships of tolerance and understanding.

Strong women, people of color, immigrants, disabled, other-gendered, and the strong among those in minorities cried openly the past few days for a reason. They felt the loss of dignity and safety. The safety pin is for them and for all of us who hope for a greater unity of purpose and acceptance. I am wearing a safety pin and walking into darker corners. Let us walk towards the light together. Let us not forget Donald Trump for who he is and let us not forget Leonard Cohen for who he was. Let us think that we can learn from everyone. Let us know ourselves better, the better we will be at loving ourselves and each other. Let us celebrate our differences and the resistances that empower us in causes for the greater good. Let our intention be compassionate advocacy. May kindness and patience be the lights of our lives.

11-6-16

Everyone should write a book

That is not to say that everyone should publish a book. There was a time when I thought I should write a book of my own. Then, I thought about all the books that have been written and the books that are published every week and I became weak in my resolve to write. Who needs another book of memoirs or a second-rate novel?  I have written a journal for many years and many letters of some length and it has been a meaningful practice for me. In an age of short text messaging, I thought I was maintaining the ancient arts of communication by actually taking time to write with reflection. I think that is still the case for anyone who takes time to think about the written word and then writes. When I got to the point of worrying about what my writing had to offer the bigger world, I began to write less. I had lost some of my confidence that had me underpinning preservation of the ancient arts. The truth is that I had conflated publishing with writing.

It didn't take long for me to get back to writing because I couldn't not write. My journal writing arose out of a basic need to interact with the events of my life and the ideas in my head during a time of faltering personal resolve. It began in Philadelphia during the Vietnam War. I was a medical student at a time of great social turmoil and tensions. The undergraduate campus of the university was restless with demonstrations against the war and there were "actions" and confrontations every day. It was hard to concentrate on classwork and especially so as I had a very low draft number and stood a chance of being taken from a career path to feed the maw of an expanding beast. These details of life lived then were examples in specificity and not in kind with the tensions and contradictions that occur to all of us over the course of a lifetime. We weigh the burdens of privilege with the gifts of commonly shared experiences. We are faced with financial worries and at the same time know that money is a tool only and not the key to happiness. We find ourselves conflicted in many many ways and often push into our subconscious what is too difficult to cipher. We actually postpone and ignore what continues to fester.

I got into the habit of opening my life to my journal writing during those early times of turmoil. It was a way for me to record and explore my pains as well as my joys. It was truly cathartic. I was often able to wash off the sludge of dread from something worth saving and polishing. This process of looking deeply and cleansing proceeds today. It has become especially important for me as I have aged. Age drags one into a phase of life that is barely perceptible when one is living through the 20's, 30's, 40's, and 50's. It isn't until one turns around and discovers all the children gone from the house and one's career at an end that it becomes a solid reality. We know that we age every day but we don't "feel" old until mid-life has moved behind us into the past. Writing inevitably gets us in touch with this feeling of being someone who is experiencing a life moving from one present moment to the next. Writing slows us down in our lives and asks us to look, to notice where we are in the ever-changing landscape of what we are experiencing. In the aging process, it is an aid in understanding death's encroaching presence in life.

Writing exposes us to ourselves. It makes us curious about who we are on a regular basis. Who we are is one of the most complicated and fraught questions we can ask ourselves. "Who am I?" "What am I here for?" "How shall I live my life?" These are the questions that arise for us in our writing. One could think of them as the pivotal questions in everything written. They are the questions we address directly or indirectly in all formats. Name any category of writing and those questions will be looking at you or lurking within the structures of the writing. Your own writing will emerge from them. Others' writing will challenge you to address them in what they have written. All writing is about the human experience, whether draped in fictional dress, philosophical pomp, or historical fires still burning. We know ourselves and others by the writing we do and the writing we read.

It has never been enough for me to just write and walk away. It has been important for me to digest the experiences of loss, sorrows, and delight to find the light for the path ahead. It is in writing that I have found the resolve to attempt what I cowered from or to see that my cowering has a useful reality for me. It is in writing that my most frightful demons have lost some of their power. It is in writing that I am challenged to find new words for emotions and it is in writing that my fingers untwist and my brain becomes less tangled. I find new ways to appreciate how embodied I am in my own life. I find connections and overlapping spheres of shared energy. I become aware that I do not stand alone but share vulnerabilities and difficulties with a larger community. Writing helps us feel less alone in a world all too fragmented and disconnected.

My journal writing has gone on for many decades now but I still find myself saying "I should write a book." The noble effort of writing a book consolidates one's accumulated experiences and insights. It synthesizes and concentrates one's mental life on a deeper task of understanding and being understood. I believe all writing is autobiographical in the way the writer picks the subject, the actors, the actors' names, the circumstances of architecture and landscape, and the timeline of action. The elements of a work might not be the same as the writer's life, but they are products of his/her mental life. It is the exploration of the mental life that brings a work to life. How does the work reflect the mind of the writer and how do we reflect the work in our lives? The shared experience of writer and reader grows into a larger community of like-minded souls. Isn't this why we write? Isn't it to explore our own humanity and see how it synchronizes with that of every soul on the planet? Isn't it to find the universal in personal experience? Isn't it to feel less alone and isolated in a universe of cold limitlessness?

Everyone should write a book. Or, maybe, just a journal entry when life's puzzles are too puzzling.