Whatever Happens Today

Hi Friends - Today, I attempted some thoughts on the US Presidential election and the meaning of life. I thought I’d aim low for a change.

In all seriousness, what I’ve written is grounded in my own pain, struggle, gift, hope, concern, and experience of seeing a society transform for the worse and the better. I offer them with good heart.

And I’m glad to be accompanied by the words and sounds of Tamara Hanna, whose reflections on the difference between survivor’s guilt and survivor’s grief offer a sensitive, wise response to the recent crisis in Western North Carolina (home of The Porch) and elsewhere caused by Hurricane Helene; and could be helpful to anyone living in the aftermath of tragedy.

As always, I wish you peace, courage, creativity and community, in the spirit of a better story.

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WHATEVER HAPPENS TODAY

Whatever happens today, we will still be invited to imagine and embody a better story, for it is stories that make the world.

Political structures are based on stories, and stories come from imagination - or its lack.

Our imagination needs to be set free.

Imagine a world in which food, water, air and shelter are not just rights, but expectations, because we build societies in which the fundamental needs of all people are met as a simple fact of life.

Imagine a world in which conflict is transformed into creative tension about how to meet legitimate needs, and in which nobody ever feels they have to resort to violence to get what they want.

Imagine a world in which we expand the definition of shelter to include health and wellbeing, and that the needs of the vulnerable are responded to first.

Imagine a world in which electoral politics does only what it’s supposed to do - which is to facilitate the flourishing of human beings and the ecosystem we steward and of which we are part; and stops doing what it’s not supposed to do - which is to dominate our lives.

Imagine a world in which such domination is exchanged for leadership-as-service, in which retribution gives way to transformative justice, in which self-righteous purification and the exile of “others” becomes self-reflection, shared responsibility, and the genuine possibility of change, in which isolation is abandoned in favor of the kind of renewal that comes from contemplation, in which weaponized victimhood is traded for taking suffering seriously enough to bind the wounds of the brokenhearted and do the kind of things that reduce violence and further harm rather than creating more of it, and in which the impulse to scarcity-driven accumulation is met by making the stewardship and sharing of beautiful things more honorable than hoarding them.

Imagine a world in which boundaries can be held over lines of significant difference without dehumanizing our opponents, but always leaving open the possibility of building bridges rather than burning them.

Imagine a world in which our political, religious, cultural and economic institutions are devoted to expanding the circle of belonging, in which the only standard for admission to an ever-increasing table is a commitment to not consciously harm anyone else.

Imagine a world in which accountability and amends for the misdeeds of nations can evolve into creative endeavors that repair the past and build something better for everyone.

Imagine a world in which no one believes that some lives are worth less than others.

Imagine a world in which your life matters as much as anyone else’s.

Imagine a world in which your gifts and privileges are used to serve the common good, and that your needs and lack always find a place to go that helps reduce their sting.

Imagine a world in which “creativity” is valued as much as “productivity”, and where the poetry of every person’s life - their “genius” is validated.

Imagine a world in which the inevitable pain of life would always be tended; and that no one would ever have to sit in the ashes completely alone.

Imagine a world in which we took death seriously enough to take life seriously enough.

Imagine a world in which we weren’t plagued with unnecessary fear, but simply learned the wisdom of what is.

And imagine a world in which one of the most universally accepted but least meaningfully defined concepts - love - would be considered the absolute minimum standard for any political, economic, cultural, religious or personal endeavor. This love is not a victory march, but self-extension for the sake of others, mingled with wonder at the goodness of life, lament for the sorrow, and a clear-eyed conscious commitment to drinking deeply at the well of experience, and sharing what we find there.

To be here now, knowing that while we did not ask for this moment’s blessings or curses, and no-one “earns” either grace or cruelty, this is the moment we’ve been given. It’s full of all kinds of things - and depending on where we’re located we may need more urgent support or protection than others.

But the wisdom of the ages, the stories of the most courageous, and sometimes the most beautifully outrageous, all agree: life is beautiful, suffering is inevitable, and all the prophets and poets and peacemakers are summed up by the insistence that we are lovable, and that there is no more important, meaningful, effective, or true way to live than to devote ourselves to the experience and sharing of love.

Elections should be about how power can be used to call forth love.

But so is every choice any of us will ever make.

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Survivor’s Guilt vs. Survivor’s Grief - Tamara L. Hanna

(Photo by Mike Labrum on Unsplash.)

Guilt will silence our feelings, telling us they need to stay smaller than others because we survived. But Grief takes our hand and leads us deeper through our individual sorrow, and if we have the courage to let her do her work in us, she leads us to our deepest shared human longings:

I wish this had been different…

I wish this never had to happen to anyone…

I wish death, destruction, and loss didn't happen to anyone…

I wish we always took better care of each other and the land.

We lament the discomfort of our guilt, when in fact guilt may be easier, possibly more comfortable, and certainly more convenient than the Grief whose powerful force will bring even more of the change we ardently resist.

She will strip us of our certainty, poke holes in all our beliefs about fair and blessed and deserving. She will take us down to the unrecognizable studs of our very identity—questioned, unraveled, lost.

But she will not leave us there!

No, unlike guilt which is a dead end road to the washed away bridge to nowhere, Grief extends promises if we partner with her on this new path.

She will give us new eyes of clarity: what really matters.

Time is precious.

Divisions are pointless.

We are more alike than we are different.

We are here to love and be loved.

Listen to Tamara read the full piece during a vigil in Black Mountain held on October 29th, here.