Teeter-Totter

Friends,

I feel a lot like that we are sitting on a teeter-totter. On the one hand we live with daily announcements of offensive, often illegal, and ultimately sad fate the unchecked personality of a very troubled man can create. But my teeter-totter just as easily tips the other direction. I often think I see the general public becoming more and more aware that the animosity of division not only does not solve problems, but it severely diminishes our lives and our sense of community. Conversely, when we express and receive simple kindnesses from strangers life becomes lighter and reassuring that community is not only possible, but it is actually present now among us.

President Trump’s hold on the MAGA party seems to be weakening, even though the cruelty continues to be so wrenching. We are still so dangerously enmeshed in his assumption of complete and unaccountable personal privilege that so endangers so many lives. But at the same time we can sense alternative movements are forming, and resistance is becoming more organized and effective. So for the moment politically, culturally and personally we are better at establishing a more circumspect and less desperate sense of all.

I am finding that my life - and history and life in general - is a paradox (two things being simultaneously true). The teeter-totter of well-being and anxiety, hope and despair, slowly bobbing back and forth, or hung up in an impasse. Perhaps others of you have been dealing recently with medical diagnosis and treatment protocols and the hours and days of waiting. Yet we do wait knowing that we really have little or no choice. And we rely on our trust of the medical personnel and the immunal capacity our own bodies, and often the prayers of others as well as our own. I sense there is a comparison with that process and the political crisis we are facing.

My medical challenges have calmed for the present, but I live with the possibility, of course, of the resurgence of cancer or any of the other life threatening diseases or impacts on my body. Our body politic, unfortunately, is definitely still in crisis, but I believe the combination of the inherent goodness in people, the support of what is still functional about our democracy, and the realization that common sense says most people cannot sustainably live under dictatorial rule. There is even evidence we will not only reassert our democratic heritage, but we may even move into the compassionate welfare of a functional New Deal-like socialist governance.

When we express and receive simple kindnesses to and from strangers life becomes lighter and reassuring that community is not only possible, but it is actually present now among us. Is this just wishful thinking? I trust at heart people believe in our inherent goodness even in the most emotionally challenged among us. Practice that goodness yourself and recognize and appreciate it in others. This is ultimately how we can overcome the fear and hatred that plague us.

Peace,
Tom