One of the major things that is shifting in me is connected to a new realization. I used be stuck in one of two different reactions when I encountered conflict in situations that I felt passionate about: 1) I would engage fully with the other and express everything I had to express, but it would all be tinged with emotional intensity, an intensity born out of the feeling that my whole self was being attacked. 2) I would step back, pray and get “peaceful” about the conflict, but generally decide that it wasn’t worth engaging in the end. I was at peace, and there was no need to pursue it. 

Lately I’ve been experimenting with another way. Since becoming a part of this cohort I now find myself wondering “you’re learning to be a peacemaker, and that’s how you act?” With this in mind, I find that I am no longer satisfied by these two reactions. I am challenged to engage… and yet I am constantly trying to be aware of any intensity flaring up inside of me. And yes, there’s a lot of it! Triggered all the time. I’ve been trying to allow the conflict to just “be” and notice when I was feeling attacked (by the difference in opinion or the conflict). How often do I think that I am speaking such “perfect words” and then realize that the words may be right, but I am radiating an emotional energy and intensity which probably feels to the receptor like they’re getting run over by a bulldozer? I am trying now to let go of the intensity and the emotional violence and simply allow the conflict to exist without the expectation to resolve it or force my “brilliant” resolution onto the other. It’s very hard! I believe it was Osheta who said that we aren’t very convincing peace makers when people can feel that we aren’t at peace with ourselves. 

Something else that is starting to take flame within me is a growing sense of urgency about the current situation in the country. I feel like I need to act but I’m not finding the places or the people that draw me into action. Part of me keeps hoping that the questionable actions of the current government will be held into check (through the courts, through upcoming elections, through the changing tide of opinion). This feels like a common hope in most of the people around me. But when I think harder and longer, I don’t truly believe this will happen. I keep thinking of that advice which is often given for relationships “when someone tells you who they are, believe them.” I feel like the current administration and the people surrounding it have clearly said what they want to do, and they are doing it, and there is no reason for it to stop. I remember a book that I read, the memoir of a teenage Jewish girl in Poland during the holocaust called Hope is the Last to Die. I bought it thinking it would have an inspirational aspect to it, but the title referred to the fact that the worst part of her experience was her hope. No matter how bad things got, she said the hope was always there even after her family was killed, after she was arrested and put into a camp…and yet things kept getting worse.

Just a couple of days ago, I read about hundreds of international students receiving emails telling them that their visas were revoked and that they are asked to “self-deport”, or else they could be deported at any time (possibly to a country other than their country of origin), mostly because of opinions expressed in protests or on social media regarding Palestinians. This feels like a huge shift in the nature of our democracy. Punishment for expressing political views? And last week a friend of mine told me that he went to a conference in Canada and was interrogated by US Immigration in Canada on the way back for six and a half hours as if he were a criminal (and he said there were many others like him). He is: from Belgium and has lived in the US for 15 years. He’s a lawyer working for a copper mining company and is currently in the process of getting a green card. He missed his plane, of course. He is in a privileged category. If this is happening to him, I can’t begin to imagine what is happening to those who represent categories that are more vulnerable. I’m having trouble seeing how these situations are a question of Left or Right, Democrat or Republican… and not simply a question of Democracy vs. Autocracy?

The cohort is one of the few places that I’m connected to now where I feel that people are open to looking for and thinking about another way forward. I know that the cohort is not designed to be a place to generate or promote specific forms of action and I find that approach very honest and wise. And yet, I am fearful of being complacent, wallowing in my own reflections and philosophizing too much at a moment in history when action is urgently needed, or it may be too late.

I am wondering are there any movements that offer a new vision forward for the country? One that seeks to create the beloved community and refuses the ways of violence and dehumanizing the other? One that recognizes that if we have arrived at this extreme moment of division and suffering no one group is entirely responsible… that there are people and groups from all sides who have contributed to bringing us here, and it is important to recognize our own shortcomings in order to create something better? I am not hearing these voices. If any of you are connected to groups that are addressing the current political crisis in the country from that perspective, I’d love to hear about it.

In the meantime, as I prayed the other day, I began to wonder… if I don’t see it anywhere, perhaps I should do something about it? Start small with just a few friends who are receptive to another way of addressing things? On Zoom, perhaps? Maybe framing it as something along the lines of “Citizens for the Beloved Community”? A place where we can begin to exchange ideas based on principles of non-violence and the refusal to dehumanize directly in regards to the political crisis in our country now. A place where we can begin to form a vision out of which we can take action. It’s just an idea. Maybe it will end up being one meeting…maybe more. Or maybe it will lead me to people who are already doing this or something similar? 

I long for a movement that aims to create a greater “We”, one that can remind us of what we all love about our democracy (on all sides, and not dependent on a party) and can challenge us to look at the ways we have fallen short and ways that we can come together…. to grow closer to fulfilling the promise of our founding documents – enabling life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all. One of the reasons authoritarians are able to do what they do is because of all the “decent” people who go along with them. Rather than only attack the leaders, it feels important to win over the group of people who have been pulled into their spell, win them over with a vision that can remind us of the spark of beauty that is in this country’s blueprint and has helped to unite us over different crises. Is this delusional or naive?

(My apologies for the length, I’m having trouble doing better…)