optimism

Shifting To A Kinship Worldview

/ Laura Grace Weldon / 6 Comments

I wake this morning to soft rain and lie there a few extra moments grateful that our flower and vegetable gardens are drinking in this blessing, until I remember horrific flooding going on right now in Pakistan with 33 million affected and over a thousand dead. In just the last few weeks torrential rains have killed people in Afghanistan, Sudan, China, Yemen, and South Korea. At the same time, others suffer mightily with drought including other areas of China, countries in the Horn of Africa, two-thirds of Europe, and nearly half of the U.S. All is this is brought on or intensified by climate change and about to get worse. A new study in Nature Climate Change says it’s now inevitable that 110 trillion tons of ice will melt in Greenland. This would cause a foot of sea-level rise. This doesn’t even include additional sea-rise from melting ice in Antarctica. Worse yet, the study doesn’t “factor in any additional greenhouse gas emissions” so it’s actually a current best-case scenario. Already we’re experiencing catastrophic storms, floods, and droughts worse than what climate models predicted. That foot high sea-rise could end up as a 20-foot rise if we don’t turn things around very, very quickly.   

I get up to let out the dogs and make coffee. I quietly appreciate my dear spouse who kneels on the kitchen floor trying to entice our 16-year-old dog to eat a few morsels of meat which my husband regularly buys and cooks for him. I look out the window, delighted to spot a great blue heron in the pond.  

I try to stay in the moment, just watching this creature’s prehistoric-looking countenance and admirable patience as it waits to spear a fish, but here it comes again, my awareness of what we’re doing to this beautiful planet. Nearly half the world’s bird species are in decline due to degradation of their habitats as well as to climate change. In North America alone the bird population has dropped by nearly three billion birds, a decline of 29 perfect since 1970.

Okay, I’m going to stop with the reality overflow. I simply want to acknowledge this is how the day goes for many of us. We’re fully enmeshed in our ordinary lives — getting to work on time, stopping at the grocery store, making supper, keeping up with family and friends, trying to pay bills, hoping to get a better night’s rest than the night before. At the same time we carry the weight of guilt and anxiety over the state of the planet.

E.B. White, author of much beloved books such as Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little, as well as The Elements of Style co-author, once said,  “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” I have to disagree with the late Mr. White. I don’t think we can save it without truly, wholeheartedly savoring it.

Savoring, for me, is about awe. It’s about seeing relationships between what is and sensing the expansiveness of what’s just beyond our rational minds. It’s about connection. It’s about what my friend John C. Robinson calls partnering with Creation.

For many, many generations we humans have been told we are separate from our past, our bodies, our communities, our inner promptings. Even more unbelievably, we’re told we are separate from Earth itself. We’re told its normal on this planet to extract what we want from the labor of others, even from the natural resources essential for future generations. We’re told life is a competition, a constant struggle to ensure our needs are met. Maybe we’re also told we should advocate for others, typically those so similar to us that they share a religion or a language or zipcode. The materialistic “needs” of some impair the very essential needs of others for food, water, shelter, medical care, and justice. This spoken and unspoken worldview is pressed into our awareness from the time we are small children. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Four Arrows and Darcia Narvaez, in their new book, Restoring the Kinship Worldview: Indigenous Voices Introduce 28 Precepts for Rebalancing Life on Planet Earth (library link) explain there’s a disconnected Dominant Worldview and a connected Kinship or Indigenous Worldview. To shift into the connected worldview, it’s time to decolonize our minds. Here’s a look at hope.

via kindredmedia.org

A few related hope-inducing books I’m (very slowly) and reading:

And this offering of this poem of mine about connection, recently published in About Place Journal.

SNIPPING PARSLEY

“Language is a tailor’s shop where nothing fits.” – Rumi

I can’t fit words around
a feeling I carry
sweeter than sadness
sliding past the shape of questions.
As I snip parsley from its blue pot
I consider how
each injury a leaf suffers
triggers an electric charge,
the way an alarm flashes
as a building is breached.      

When very young I knew for sure 
everything was its own kind of awake.
Honeysuckle vine and bees visiting it.
Air trapped in a room, the room itself.
Dark watchful eyes of animals,
wild speech of water,
still presence of stone.
Everything, far
into unseen universes,
awake beyond our small knowing.    

Although thank is too weak a word 
I want to thank this parsley plant.
Is it enough to notice each leaf’s symmetry
before the soft green shush under my scissors?
Is it enough to taste the transfiguration
we call photosynthesis?
I can’t put it into words,
but can almost summon
lost memories of an original      
language we once held in common.

Courage & Vision

/ Laura Grace Weldon / 12 Comments

“The children almost broken by the world become the adults most likely to change it.”   ~Frank Warren

In this heartbreakingly beautiful and suffering world, I am still full of hope. There are many reasons why. One  of them is the newest generation of teens and young adults. I may be a worn out almost-activist, but I’ve put enough time in meetings, marches, petition drives, and workshops over the years to know I’ve never encountered more informed, passion-fueled people than those who are currently aged 14 to 30-something.  

The pressures on young people over the last few decades have been intense and continue to worsen. Here in the U.S. they have been raised with active shooter drills and horrific mass shootings, crushing student loan debt, rapidly increasing wage disparity, ongoing prejudice, ever-escalating climate catastrophe, and the belligerent ignorance that fuels rapacious capitalism. They are furious and they are doing something about it.

We’re talking a lot of people, well past the number necessary to serve as a tipping point for large-scale social change.

The most sizeable age group in the country right now is made up of adults aged 25 to 29. Add in those 15 to 25, and 29 to late 30s, and we’re talking a substantial portion of the population. A recent Deloitte survey of those in the Gen Z and Millennial age range show the majority hold themselves and others accountable for profound change. This includes a commitment to regenerative environment/climate solutions, recognizing and addressing systemic racism in society and its institutions, dealing with income inequality, and demanding greater access to affordable housing and healthcare. They are taking action in myriad ways:  

  • choosing experiences over products
  • using second-hand and recycled items
  • prioritizing downtime over workaholic schedules
  • demanding inclusive policies in academic, media, and workplace
  • volunteering and/or setting up businesses to realize their goals
  • expecting sustainable policies from source to sales in what they buy
  • pressuring employers to upgrade and act on environmental. social justice policies
  • participating in protests, boycotts, and other ongoing actions
  • voting in record numbers
  • running for office in record numbers      

Maybe that’s why so many who want to stay the (rapidly failing) course would rather marginalize the energy and vision of today’s youth. But if ever a country needed the courage of fresh ideas, it’s now.

We can work forward while looking back to find what history can teach us – without romanticizing mistakes of the past. This is especially true when a well-funded segment of society is dedicated to dragging us back into past mistakes.

Since these particular dinosaurs insist they know precisely what the founding fathers meant when they established a new country, lets consider a few stories of the many young people who were involved in the formation of the United States. How old were they on July 4th, 1776?

15 years old: Deborah Sampson had been bound as an indentured servant when she was 10 years old. By the age of 18, the self-educated young woman was free of her indenture and worked as a teacher as well as a weaver. With the Revolutionary War raging in 1782, she disguised herself as a man and joined the war effort. She took on dangerous assignments which included working as a scout to assess British buildup, leading expeditions, and taking part in raids. To keep her gender hidden, Deborah even dug a pistol ball from her thigh when she was shot. It was only when she fell ill during an epidemic that her identity was outed. She received an honorable discharge.

15 years old: Sybil Ludington was the daughter of a New York militia officer. When a messenger alerted her father that Governor William Tryon’s forces had attacked Danbury, Connecticut she leaped on a horse to ride through the night, during a thunderstorm, nearly 40 miles in all, to sound the alarm. Danbury was the location where munitions and stores for the entire region’s militia were stored. British troops destroyed tons of meat, flour, and grain as well as tents and other supplies. They set fire to homes, businesses, and a church but spared Tory homes. The brutality of their attack led thousands of men to join the Connecticut Army of Reserve. Sybil was unaccompanied on her ride, unlike the more famous Paul Reverse. She also rode twice as far, was half his age, and was not arrested as Revere had been. A grateful General George Washington came to her home to thank Sybil for her heroic ride. 

16 years old: James Armistead Lafayette was an enslaved teenager when he was permitted to enlist in the French Allied unit. The army sent the young man (acting as a runaway slave) to General Cornwallis’ British headquarters. James was welcomed thanks to his extensive knowledge of the terrain. He became a remarkably successful spy for America’s cause. He relayed essential information to Marquis de Lafayette (who was himself only 19 years old in 1776). His intelligence provided information critical to victory in the Battle of Yorktown. Despite his service, James was forced to return to enslavement after the war’s end. For several years he petitioned Congress for his freedom under the Act of 1783 without success. When Lafayette learned of his old comrade’s struggle, he wrote a letter to Congress on his behalf. James Armistead added “Lafayette” to his name in honor of his friendship with General Lafayette.     

21 years old: Nathan Hale was a captain of the 19th Regiment of the Continental Army when General George Washington asked if anyone would volunteer to gather information from the enemy. Nathan stepped forward. He slipped behind British lines disguised as a schoolmaster and gathered information throughout the next few weeks. During this time, the British invaded the island of Manhattan. Nathan was captured carrying documents while crossing back into American-controlled territory and was executed the next morning.

21 years old: Alexander Hamilton was orphaned at age 13 and immigrated to America at age 15. He wrote a series of anonymous pamphlets about Britain’s control of the colony and in 1775 formed a volunteer militia with fellow college students. He worked on General George Washington’s staff until the two had a falling-out. Alexander is known as a framer of the U.S. Constitution, co-author of The Federalist Papers, and the nation’s first Secretary of the Treasury.

24 years old: Betsy Ross, aka Elizabeth Griscom Ross, was raised by a Quaker family and became a skilled seamstress. She defied her family by eloping with John Ross despite being warned her family and Quaker community would shun her for marrying a non-Quaker. She and her husband established an upholstery business. John joined the Pennsylvania militia and was killed in an explosion. A few months after being widowed, Betsy met with a secret committee from the Continental Congress who asked her to create a flag that might unite their various militias. She completed the flag shortly before the Declaration of Independence was read aloud in July 1776.  Betsy’s part in the independence movement was unknown by the British, who a few months later forced her to house occupying British soldiers in her home. When they left she wove cloth pouches to hold gunpowder for Continental soldiers. After the revolution, Betsy made U.S. flags for over 50 years.  

Overall, the average age for Declaration of Independence signers was 44, with more than a dozen 35 or younger.

This isn’t a time to step back, expecting teens and the youngest adults to clean up the mess we’ve made. It’s time to step up our support for their vision of a regenerative, inclusive, wildly beautiful future. Starting now.

Hate Is Biodegradable

/ Laura Grace Weldon / 8 Comments

I know a woman who once hated her ex with such fury that she soothed herself by imagining all the ways she might kill him. She and he did the acrimony dance through lawyers long after their finances were left in ruins. Somehow they both believed they spared their daughter, having agreed to remain cheerful in her presence. The girl surely saw the grimaces inside their smiles.

Their loathing simmered for years until their child, at nine, was diagnosed with cancer. Both parents went to her appointments and treatments. They cried and prayed and hoped together. Their daughter survived. She grew up smart and strong. She recently got engaged.  

My friend is happily remarried and her ex lives with a much adored life partner. The two couples have been vacationing together for years. They laugh, they reminisce, they dance in ways that give each couple space. They talk about buying a big house or property with two homes so the four of them can move in together. They imagine a backyard roomy enough for their daughter’s wedding. Imagine it scattered with trees perfect for their someday grandchildren to climb. They message each other real estate listings all the time.

I think of countries around the world that were once at war, but are now on friendly terms. They read each other’s literature, savor each other’s cuisines, celebrate each other’s accomplishments. Tourists visit parks where war memorials stand under flowering trees. Suffering and loss can decompose over time into something nourishing, as nature so patiently shows us.  

This isn’t a perfect analogy in a time of division, especially when so many refuse to look at longstanding structural inequities and ongoing injustices. And trauma needs time and acknowledgement to start healing. But there’s hope. My friend just texted me a picture of a listing the four of them are considering. “It isn’t perfect,” she writes, “but its got so many possibilities!”

Where I’m Finding Delight This Week

/ Laura Grace Weldon / 9 Comments

****

I’m thrilled to be leading a free online workshop with the Ohio Arts Council, in partnership with Riffe Gallery’s newest exhibition. We’ll be writing about beauty, anger, despair, and the vital role of art in changing our world. It’s coming up this Thursday (Feb 3rd). If you’re interested, sign up here.

***

I adore Cremaine Booker’s exquisite recording of Faure’s “Pavane.” It’s heavenly in every way – from production values to his expressive interpretation. Pretty sure I’ve listened to this a dozen times. It’s currently my main earworm.   

  ***

This morning I learned that 65 species of animals laugh. A few years ago I wrote Are You An Anthropocentrist? with examples of our fellow creatures making tools, doing math, demonstrating altruism, and so much more. Pretty sure laughter is just the iceburg edge of what we don’t yet recognize…

***

I’m still thinking about a recent conversation with my friend Margaret. We discovered we’re both feeling the same exhaustion, confusion, and awe as if we’ve been communing on some nearby yet intangible realm. “It seems to me,” she said, “as if we’re all experiencing what the other experiences on some level.”

I told her that gave me a leap of hope. We as a global community are going through every bit of this together – disease, personal upheaval, uncertainty, and the ever-increasing perils of climate change – even if some are suffering far much more acutely than others. Maybe the anger and selfishness that’s so often in the news these days are coping mechanisms some people resort to when they’re trying to put boundaries between themselves and the sheer weight of compassion that’s trying to force its way in.     

***

I’ve been in a writer’s slump lately, so it’s a delight to have a poem published in Stirrings as well as a poem in As It Ought To Be.

***

I’m gratefully distracted by a stack of wonderful library books including Ari Honarvar’s A Girl Called Rumi, Joanna Macy’s memoir Widening Circles, and Barbara Brown Taylor’s An Altar In The World.

***

Another song in my head lately is the beautifully honest “Hope Comes” by Abigail and Shaun Bengson. As Abigail sings, “Hope comes from the center of the hurt.” Yes, yes indeed.

A Short Bridge Between Us

/ Laura Grace Weldon / 10 Comments

I’m standing in line for my second dose of Pfizer vaccine in a bustling CVS. Everyone waiting joins in a jovial camaraderie. The man wearing a United Steelworkers t-shirt says he can’t wait to get the shot. “I’m retired,” he says. “I spend my time traveling to see my five grandchildren, that’s what I do. Until Covid. I haven’t seen them in a year. That includes a three-month-old granddaughter I haven’t held.” He shakes his head. “You can’t have a relationship with a baby on a screen.”

A woman with a soft accent takes off her coat and folds it over her arm. “I am so happy to get my second shot,” she says. “I feel so lucky.”

A man with a ponytail in his curly gray hair says, “I don’t know who I’m going to be seeing of my family, what with everyone divided over politics. I’ll keep quiet if that’s what it takes to sit down at the same table.” He doesn’t say what “side” he’s on. It doesn’t matter. We’re in this together.

I think about a report I recently read. It’s based on a national survey taken in late January of this year. Its focus is what Americans prioritize and what they think others prioritize for this country’s long-term future. The survey included Trump voters and Biden voters. Instead of asking only direct question about support or opposition to various positions, they also asked choice-based questions to get beyond what respondents believe they should say or think most people would say.

The results? Americans share long-term goals to a remarkable degree. Here’s a summary of their findings.

Across race, gender, income, education, generational cohorts, and 2020 presidential vote, there is stunning agreement on the long-term national values and priorities that Americans believe should characterize the country moving forward. Chief among them: high quality healthcare as a necessity, not a privilege; an overwhelming commitment to individual rights; and upholding equal treatment for all, but not necessarily equal outcomes.

Where significant differences in aspirations do emerge, they are almost entirely political in nature. The evidence suggests Americans mistake intensity of partisan disagreement on a small number of issues (e.g., immigration) for breadth of partisan disagreement across a far-ranging number of issues.

Collective illusions — significant gaps between personal and perceived societal aspirations for the nation — as an obstacle to progress. For example, there is a surprising level of support for action on climate change and conservation. However, Americans don’t recognize it. Climate action privately ranks as the third highest personally-held national aspiration out of 55 possibilities; yet, Americans believe that ‘most others’ would rank climate action as a much lower priority (#33).

Biden voters and Trump voters share a sense of urgency around 5 policy objectives. Voters from both political camps want improvement in the near-term on healthcare, keeping communities safe, helping the middle class, modernizing infrastructure, and criminal justice reform.

It’s the retired steelworker’s turn. Before sitting in the chair for his shot, he turns to us. “I’m leaving two weeks from today,” he says with a grin, “driving across Ohio to hold the baby girl I’ve been missing.”

The dark-haired woman is next. She says “I hope I don’t cry. This has me all emotional.”

Then it’s my turn. I find it hard to contain my exuberance. “I expected trumpet fanfares with each shot!” I say to the pharmacist. What does she do? She bursts into song.

It May Happen For You

/ Laura Grace Weldon / 23 Comments

Here in the Midwest we say, “You won’t meet a nicer person” and that perfectly describes Sam Richards. Sam is married to my cousin Becky (another one of those truly kind people). The geographical distance separating us means we only see each other every decade or so, but nearly two years ago Becky and Sam came from Missouri to stay with us for a few days. Sam had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and because his symptoms were worsening they wanted to cross off as many bucket list items as possible before travel became too difficult. They went to parks, museums, visited extended family in the area, and walked around the tree-lined streets of Oberlin College where Becky’s father had graduated. It was an absolute delight to spend time with them, even though shadowed by our concern for Sam’s health. It was gutting to think this supremely capable and generous man was facing decline.  

Sam served in the U.S. Marine Corp for 23 years. He continued a life of public service as a police officer and code enforcement officer. His commitment didn’t end there. He served a total of eight years on two different city councils, nearly 20 years on a regional EMS board of directors, as well ongoing work on the executive council of their Methodist church.  He was asked to run for mayor of their city, Festus, but couldn’t consider it due to his health.

Later that year, Becky called with the most amazing news. It was discovered that Sam didn’t have Parkinson’s after all. A medication he was taking for another condition caused side effects that mimicked the disease. With a change of medication, his future was once again wide open. I could have laughed and cried at the same time. With everything going on in the country and the world, this was the best news we’d heard in a very long time.

It got better.

Last year, on April 2nd, Sam Richards was sworn in as mayor of Festus, Missouri.

                                                                     ~~~

Which brings me to today. Our new puppy arrived this afternoon. Many of the dogs we’ve had over the years came to us already named – among them Jedi, Winston, and Cocoa. But this little guy was ours to name. In these difficult times, I want a daily reminder that extraordinarily wonderful things are possible. That a good thing happened to a good man. That a town got a fine mayor. That there’s always hope. So of course, our new dog’s name is Festus.

He is an affectionate, playful, constant tail-wagging fluff ball. First nap of the afternoon.

SOMETIMES

Sometimes things don’t go, after all,
fom bad to worse.  Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
That seemed hard frozen: it may happen for you.

~Sheenagh Pugh  

First Time You Felt Brave*

/ Laura Grace Weldon / 19 Comments

 

I am fifteen. I do my best to avoid being noticed. I don’t dress provocatively or wear makeup other than mascara, barely even see other faces because I don’t wear my glasses. I do my schoolwork, work an afterschool job, date a boy who makes me feel safe. But inside I have large, loud opinions about social conditions, politics, religion. I don’t know anyone who talks about such things. My boyfriend wisely listens and agrees with the fervent opinions I share only with him.

I don’t know how to get along with my boyfriend’s family so I smile and stay quiet. I’m pretty sure something about me disgusts his older brother because he won’t even look at me. If I call and he answers, he drops the phone on the counter to yell for his brother. He’s never once said my name. My boyfriend’s father is 6 foot 5 inches, towering 14 inches over me. I’m not familiar with adult sarcasm so I wilt around him. I don’t like that my wilting makes me seem like my boyfriend’s mother, who expresses no opinions, not even on her face, making herself small and subservient.

One afternoon my boyfriend and I are out together. We stop at his house for a brief interlude with his proudly Irish great uncle who is visiting from out of state for the first time in decades. He is thin and whiskery as a stalk of wheat. I smile at him whenever he looks my way. He brings up a work-related incident that still angers him, quickly devolving into racist comments  He is the first person I’ve ever heard deride Black people. In the next sentence he uses the n-word. I bristle. My boyfriend looks at me with an expression I interpret as let it go. The great uncle continues, his mouth in a strange smirk. I have been taught to be polite. I’ve kept quiet to my detriment many times and will do so many more times. But this time I speak up.

My boyfriend’s family looks shocked as the quiet little blonde girl, the one who obsessively reads history, spews out all the Irish slurs she can think of. I say Mick and Paddy and drunken Irish, asking if he wants his people spoken about that way.  I ask if he knows what prejudice his ancestors endured when signs were posted outside buildings reading No Irish need apply or No Irish, no dogs, or, more commonly, No Irish, no dogs, no Blacks just a few generations ago.

There’s an awful pause.

I want to run out of the room but, unexpectedly, he agrees such terms are unfair. Then starts to justify his biases. I say it’s the exact same thing. He says no it’s not, I say yes it is. Prejudice is prejudice.

A longer pause.

Neither one of us knows how to extricate ourselves from the situation. Right about then, my boyfriend invents a reason we have to leave. We hustle out of the house. Once we get in the car, I laugh although I’m shaking. I say I have no delusion I’ve made any difference. I have no idea how to make a difference. The real me wants very much to know what can.

~

Now I live in a world where young people, everywhere, advocate loudly and persistently for a sustainable, equitable, compassionate future. They’re not standing up to one racist man, they are standing up to an entrenched history of brutality and greed. They are reshaping the future. I can feel it happening. I hope you can too.

*I’ve worked on an exhaustively hyperlinked post about ways to reimagine education during the pandemic but just can’t seem to muster up what it takes to finish it. So I’m posting this response to the writing prompt “the first time you felt brave.” I think our world needs a great deal more bravery (and love) than it ever has in my lifetime. Please respond with a story of when YOU felt brave. 

 

Compassion By Design

/ Laura Grace Weldon / 5 Comments

The weight of other people’s suffering can be palpable, whether someone weeping in the next room or someone in agony across the globe. How do we go about our own lives knowing others are in anguish at the same moment? This question has haunted me, especially in my growing up years. I suspect such questions weigh more on children than we imagine.

By the time I was eight or nine years old, my parents had cancelled their subscriptions to news magazines because they couldn’t deal with repeated questions like, “Why is that village burning? Who hurt that man? Why isn’t someone helping that baby?” Even the most well-intentioned adult would rather not think about such questions, let alone answer them. Try to explain war to a child. No matter how you skew it, the answer comes down to whoever destroys more property and kills more people, wins. Try explaining poverty or prejudice to a child. It’s impossible to morally justify the indifference and greed that helps to prop up “normal” life in the face of truly open, honest questions.

Starting in babyhood, most children express empathy as well as a sense of connection to the natural world.  Many children, including some we call “gifted” and some we call “neurodiverse” are more strongly motivated by the search for justice, mercy, equality, and truth than by more superficial adult concerns like polite behavior.

Even new arrivals to the planet demonstrate this. By six months of age, babies show empathy for those who have been treated unfairly. Concern for others starts on day one. When hearing recorded cries, one-day old newborns are more likely to cry when hearing a recording of another baby crying than their own cries. Newborns also show more intense and longer-lasting distress when listening to others’ cries. This effect doesn’t diminish. Studies show babies continue to react with distress to other’s cries at one, three, six, and nine months.

As children show us, this is quite naturally who we are. Kindness is the way our species evolved. According to anthropologist Douglas Fry, author of Beyond War: The Human Potential for Peace,  for 98 percent of our human existence on earth we lived in small nomadic bands that did not make war, thriving precisely because our kind relied on cooperation and collaboration. The oldest and most longstanding child-rearing practices still support this way of being.

Historian Rutger Bregman, author of Humankind: A Hopeful History, says in a recent interview, “If I say most people are pretty decent that may sound nice and warm but actually it’s really radical and subversive and that’s why, all throughout history, those who have advocated a more hopeful view of human nature – often the anarchists – have been persecuted.”

Greed, and violence are not “human nature.”  We flourish best with gentle nurturance and ongoing cooperation.  Even our bodies are cued for compassion. In fact, research tells us our bodies pump out oxytocin when we’re stressed. Normally we think of it as a love hormone. It is. It prompts us to connect with and support one another. As we reach out, our bodies react with more oxytocin, helping us recover while strengthening relationships.

We are in a time of intense reexamination brought about by an unchecked global pandemic, systemic oppression, and ecosystem destruction.When we wall off our feelings of outrage, shame, and despair we’re walled off from ourselves.  It’s time to recognize the collective weight of suffering. Time to truly to listen to each other. This starts with the questions children ask, often the largest questions.

As Tobin Hart writes in The Secret Spiritual World of Children, our wide-awake presence in the lives of children “reminds us to listen for inner wisdom, find wonder in the day, see through the eye of the heart, live the big questions, and peer into the invisible. “

Mutual Aid In The Time Of Covid-19

/ Laura Grace Weldon / 14 Comments

“Hope has never trickled down, it has always sprung up.”    ~Naomi Klein     

Last night, after reading frightening coverage about this country’s abysmal preparation for Covid-19, with potential death tolls estimated to reach 1 to 1.5 million Americans, I dreamed about a family member just outside my window who couldn’t hear or see me calling him. Even in my dream I wondered which one of us wasn’t alive. I also dreamed about rotting food that grew into a malevolent presence. (And I dreamed about pastel-colored baby llamas…)

I woke up to cancel and respond to cancellation notices for all sorts of workshops, events, and get-togethers. Tentatively my classes for April are still a go-status, but I realize that may change. So much is changing.

Like nearly everyone else, I’m taking in more news than I normally do. I’ve heard experts say this pandemic is the event of a century. I’ve heard experts say this will be generation-defining. And of course there are people like conservative columnist David Brooks whose piece in the NYT is titled “Pandemics Kill Compassion, Too” with the subtitle “You may not like who you’re about to become.”  He writes about the ugly history of epidemics, where people blame and refuse to help one another. Of course there aren’t many accounts of how neighbors and faith communities actually helped one another in those times; history rarely tracks the experiences of ordinary people. Rebecca Solnit’s book, A Paradise Built in Hell, describes how ordinary people DO react. Here’s part of my post about this.

Author Rebecca Solnit takes a close look at disasters including earthquakes, floods, and explosions. She finds tragedy and grief, but something else too, something rarely noticed. During and after these horrific crises there shines from the wreckage something extraordinary.

People rise up as if liberated, regardless of their differences, to act out of deep regard for one another. They improvise, coordinate, create new social ties, and pour themselves into work that has no personal gain other than a sense of meaning. Such people express strangely transcendent feelings of joy, envisioning a greater and more altruistic community in the making. Even those suffering the most horrific misfortune often turn around to aid others and later remember it as the defining moment of their lives. This is a testament to the human spirit, as if disaster cracks us open to our better selves. As Solnit says, “The possibility of paradise is already within us as a default setting.”

Solnit wasn’t writing specifically about global pandemics, but already this greater human spirit is happening all around us. In my own networks I know of:

  • employees offering to handle a heavier workload so that co-workers with health problems can stay at home
  • healthcare workers taking on more shifts to deal with a massively increased workload
  • families looking after other people’s children due to school and daycare closures
  • nursing mothers vowing to share breastmilk if fellow mothers are too sick to nurse
  • neighbors offering to do errands and yard chores for elderly and/or sick neighbors
  • faith communities matching volunteers with people requesting help

And community members are getting together online to organize all sorts of mutual aid well beyond their own close networks. Here’s what my friend Mark, activist and generally awesome person, posted yesterday.

And here’s an example from an apartment dweller:

The next few months will likely test us, maybe test us severely.  Through whatever we suffer, this pandemic may help us see we are interconnected beyond our own fingertips, beyond our own borders.  May we rise to our best selves, creative and caring, no matter what. May we keep up one another’s spirits as the people of  Siena, Italy do — singing from their homes and apartments during the mandated quarantine. 

 “To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand Utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”   ~Howard Zinn

Undivided

/ Laura Grace Weldon / 4 Comments

“Respect, I think, always implies imagination—the ability to see one another, across our inevitable differences, as living souls.”   ~ Wendell Berry

I’m afraid I’ve forgotten how to write non-political poems and some recent essays I turned in were just a few degrees shy of ranting. Over the last few years my usual peace/love/humor social media feed on Facebook and Twitter has started to read more like a women trying to jump higher than despair. Every morning it takes strength just to face the news. This isn’t who I want to be. Isn’t who I think we are.

Remember the bundle of sticks story, said to come from the enslaved storyteller Aesop over 2500 years ago?

A father is distressed by the constant quarreling among his sons. Nothing he says eases the discord. When their arguments became fierce, he asks one of his sons to bring him a bundle of sticks. He hands it in turn to each son, asking them to try to break it. None of them can. Then he unties the bundle and hands out individual sticks, which they break easily. “My sons,” says the father, “do you not see how certain it is that if you help each other, it will impossible for your enemies to injure you? But if you are divided among yourselves, you are no stronger than a single stick in that bundle.”

History tells us when ordinary people are pitted against one another, those divisions are fostered by people who benefit. Divisions keep the majority preoccupied while a tiny minority amasses ever more wealth and power. So-called divides are used to keep people tussling over religion, race, ethnicity, social issues, politics — all amped up by fear of change, fear of losing what little you’ve got to someone who isn’t just like you. Meanwhile, what little power and wealth ordinary people have is usurped easily as individual sticks are broken. When we don’t stand up for each other, we lose.

But we are not hopelessly divided. In fact, across so-called political divides we are growing closer on pivotal issues.

Climate Change

Results from a 2019 poll byThe Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation show a strong majority of Americans — about 8 in 10 — say that human activity is fueling climate change.

There’s plenty of shared fear. Forty percent overall believe action to combat climate change must come in the next decade to ward off the worst consequences while 12% believe it’s already too late. These concerns cross party lines and are a significant change from a few years ago, when a 2014 Gallup poll found people ranked climate change among their lowest concerns, with a majority caring little or not at all about the issue.

How to tackle the problem? Nearly two-thirds of people polled support stricter fuel-efficiency standards for the country’s cars and trucks. While many are willing to pay more in taxes and utilities, a majority agree on two methods for funding climate action. Seven out of 10 say the money should come from increasing taxes on wealthy households. And six out of 10 favor raising taxes on companies that burn fossil fuels, even when told companies may pass costs along in the form of higher prices.

 

Immigrants 

A Pew Research Center fact sheet from early 2019 shows a strong majority of Americans (62%) say immigrants strengthen our country thanks to their hard work and talents. A total of 28% believe, instead, that immigrants burden the country by taking jobs, housing, and health care. This is a major reversal from attitudes prevalent 25 years ago, when a 1994 poll indicated 63% of Americans believed immigrants burdened the country while 31% said they strengthened it.

There are differences in opinion. Democrats overwhelmingly agree immigrants strengthen the nation (83%) while nearly half of Republicans saying they burden the nation (49%). But views among younger Republicans challenge older party views, with a majority (58%) of those under 39 years of age agreeing that immigrants strengthen the country. Notice again an increasing convergence of viewpoints.

 

Healthcare

The Commonwealth Fund’s 2019 survey found than two-thirds of people (68%) in states that have not expanded Medicaid favored expanding the program. A majority of Democrats (91%) and independents (74%) were in favor. Only 42% of Republicans overall approved, but 57% of Republicans most likely to be affected (making less than $30,350 annually) approved of expansion.

Despite confusion around this complicated issue, Americans are increasingly interested in some form of universal healthcare. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll found 58% of people approved when asked about  “a national health plan, sometimes called Medicare for All, in which all Americans would get their insurance from a single government plan.” In a CNN poll, over half (54%) said the government should provide a national health insurance program funded by taxes, although only 20% agreed it should entirely replace private health insurance. While there are strong differences of opinion a survey by RealClear Politics found healthcare was the top concern of voters, even Republicans were evenly split on supporting or not supporting Medicare for all.

Overall a significant majority of Americans believe workers should receive paid medical leave (85%) as well as parental leave (82%) following birth/adoption.

 

Economy and Money’s Influence    

 A 2020 Pew Research Center study on economic inequality found seven out of ten adults agree the U.S. economic system unfairly favors powerful interests.

Americans overall agree which groups have too much power over the economy. Eighty-four percent say politicians, 82% corporations, and 82% say the wealthy. Three-quarters agree health insurance companies have too much power, 64% say banks and other financial institutions, 61% say technology companies. There are differences of opinion within these categories, for example Republicans are more likely to say labor unions have too much power while Democrats believe corporate power is a greater concern, but there’s still plenty of common ground.

Americans in general also tend to dislike special interests interfering with elections. Eighty-four percent think money has too much influence in elections. Nearly 8 in 10 favor limits on both raising and spending money in congressional campaigns. Meanwhile, 78 percent of Americans, including 80 percent of Republicans, want to overturn the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that further opened the floodgates to corporate campaign spending, including spending from undisclosed sources.

What will it take to revive hope and work together for the common good?

My friend John Robinson, author of Mystical Activism: Transforming A World In Crisis, spoke in a recent interview about Earth’s sacredness and the peril our planet is in. He compared it to driving down the road and seeing a two-year-old wander into the street.  As he says, “You don’t keep driving and think to yourself, ‘that’s interesting, I wonder what’s going to happen.’ You jump out of the car, you stop all the other cars, and you grab that child to save him. That’s the kind of response that happens when we suddenly get how much in danger we are in and start responding to the world.”

It’s an apt analogy, not only because our instinctual response is to save the child no matter if leaping into the road endangers us, but also because it is an unconscious act of love. That’s where we are now. Life on earth is that child and the politics of the drivers going by don’t matter, the child is in peril.

That word “love” may be key. It’s found in what we are lacking, including a sense of community and shared purpose.  Across all so-called divides, we truly want the same things. Things like safety, freedom, meaning, a sense of belonging, hope for the future, a say in decisions that affect us. We may believe there are different routes to achieve these goals, but the goals are darn similar. That’s common ground.

We’ve been led to believe a brighter, more collaborative future is unrealistic, even impossible, but that’s a narrative that divides and breaks us just as effectively as tearing apart Aesop’s bundle of sticks. Howard Zinn reminded us in this article written a few years before his death,

There is a tendency to think that what we see in the present moment will continue. We forget how often we have been astonished by the sudden crumbling of institutions, by extraordinary changes in people’s thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against tyrannies, by the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed invincible….

I keep encountering people who, in spite of all the evidence of terrible things happening everywhere, give me hope. Especially young people, in whom the future rests.

Positive change takes place when people work together regardless of naysayers, regardless of divisions fostered by those who seek to consolidate ever greater wealth and power. We’re here for more than short-term satisfactions. Leap up, save the baby from the road.