After the grieving... Reflecting further on election 2024
So, America elected a president. I was less surprised this time than I was in 2016 - but I had allowed myself some hope. Which tells me I failed to understand something. After the sense of shock and horror. After wailing and posting a few intemperate things on facebook…! Like, how could half the voting public vote for someone who, to my eyes, was the poster child for sexism, racism, able-ism, xenophobia, homophobia, capitalist excess, and misuse of the democratic process? After all that... I started to question my role. Did I drop the ball and forget the promises I made in 2016? Was I living in a liberal bubble? Did I do enough to reach across ideological divides? Did I deserve to consider myself in solidarity with indigenous people, poor people, people of color, disabled folks and LGBTQ folks?
I started down the dark tunnel of despair and grief and worthlessness. Then I heard something in the back of my mind:
"You don't have to do it alone"
The UU youth, several years ago, made a t-shirt from song lyrics by Laila Ibrahim and Sheri Prudhomme.
The T-Shirt says,
"It is a blessing you were born.
What each of us knows about god is a piece of the truth.
It matters what you do.
You don't have to do it alone."
And I was reminded that I was worth a great deal.
And then another snippet came to me:
"We forgive each other and begin again in love."
For those of us who may have felt like we were supposed to somehow be smarter, be more engaged, be more effective... I invite you to say it with me:
"We forgive each other and begin again in love."
Let's say it one more time
We forgive each other and begin again in love.
So, I've been repeating that whenever I feel small or worry that my contribution had little worth. How do I measure my worth?
I will be gentle with myself I will love myself.
I am a child of the universe. Being born each moment.
(https://youtu.be/iD3_Iw7Gi14?si=nCF_HfGG1rur_Bba)
It is a blessing I was born.
But it is scary when you realize that not everyone shares a belief that every life matters. We know a woman's body matters but the Supreme Court ruled the opposite. We teach our children that "you are in charge of your own body" but we could be in a world where consent doesn't matter. Every person's body matters but we could be in a world where our health doesn't matter. Every life matters but the movement to save black lives could be severely hurt. These are scary thoughts. And I was getting paralyzed with fear. Fear for myself and fear for my siblings. My loved ones of color, my disabled family members. And, oh my goodness, my trans beloveds, who have become the focus of so much hatred.
Then that sick feeling In my stomach comes when I realize if I, with all my privilege, am frightened... How terrifying it must be for citizens who are Trans, Disabled, or undocumented...
Keep breathing! It's the most important part!
You kick, and then you glide, kick, and then you glide.
It’s all in the rhythm, all in the rhythm, all in the rhythm of the heart.
(Song in the Pagan folk tradition https://www.facebook.com/share/v/19bsdtne9H/?mibextid=7J6EjN)
It can be overwhelming to even imagine waking up tomorrow in this world... a world that I’m afraid might be all the bad things I think about 1930s Germany. I’ve begun to read a book titled “We Survived the End of the World: Lessons from Native America on Apocalypse and Hope”, In it Choctaw elder, Steven Charleston, describes four Indigenous prophets who helped their people learn strategies for surviving catastrophe: Ganiodaiio of the Seneca, Tenskwatawa of the Shawnee, Smohalla of the Wanapams, and Wovoka of the Paiute. Through movements such as turning the culture upside down, finding a fixed place on which to stand, listening to what the earth is saying, and dancing a ghostly vision into being, these prophets helped the people to survive. As the Hopi people teach, It matters what we do.
So, yes, it is natural to be overwhelmed at the work ahead of us. Whether it is holding firm to the local commitments to care for one another or working to change things further away.
A few weeks ago, I WAS missing something. I missed how fear motivates - fear of the other. I missed how many people had moved further and further into a world of hate through algorithms and rhetoric. And I missed how challenging the cultural changes that de-center white folks and privileged folks have been.
When I have done my grieving and raging, I must pick up my solidarity again. We need to stay, not just the resistance, but the vision, We need to BE the vision.
- We must name, and we must mourn. Grieving and rage are sacred work. We began our time after the election with the question. “What feels like it is crumbling right now?" we needed time to keen, agonize, grieve, and shout.
- Then we begin to ground ourselves in one small thing each one of us is planning to do next week, either to care for ourselves or to start the work of love and justice
- Now we must forgive ourselves for the way we have allowed connections to be broken or our work to lay fallow. And begin again in love. Each time we lay down the work of solidarity, we can pick it back up.
- We have each other and we can look to the peace-makers and truth-tellers and justice-bringers of the past.
- How will we provide support to those who are most vulnerable or targeted?
We need every one of us to survive.
Calling on the spirits: Malala, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, sojourner truth, Ida B. Wells, Susan B. Anthony, Gandhi, Rev. Dr. William Barber, Frederick Douglas, Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii, Huwaida Arraf… and all of us. We are the stars. We are the helpers. We shine.
Oh great lover of the world who comes to us as transformation
We honor you
We honor you
We honor you
We call on your name
Oh beloved of the world who comes to us as a new way
We honor you
We honor you
We honor you
We call on your name
(https://youtu.be/D_K0B0qSB8s?si=wx5f6d8LkkJ9Gn5i)
Blessed Be
I invite you to reflect with others on these questions:
The story of the Tower of Babylon is about pride causing us to fall out of connection with each other. When has your pride, or ideas of self, broken your relationships with others or with your holy?
Who are the helpers, the spirits of the past who you call upon?
You are a helper! Let's speak more about the small, accessible, sustainable, things you will do to care for yourself, or the world, in this time full of falling apart. What visions, what starlight, are you moving toward? (Let's stay aware of the possibilities for this question, and move beyond naming the brokenness)
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