Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by.
The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets
mounting.
Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance
Dance
Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book
rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building
has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing
day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an
endless present in which the Party is always right.”
George Orwell, 1984
We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big
difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make, which, over time,
add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.
Marian Wright
Edelman
________________________________________________________
I had a dream the other night that we were all
a faceless gathered throng
Teetering on a precipice
The small sliver of ground on which we huddled
Was slowly crumbling, and we watched it disappear
As moment by moment, the edge
Crept closer and closer
We were about to slide
Down a slippery slope
Into a dark void
Some in the throng
Stronger, healthier, bigger,
Were shoving those
With less power forwards
Pushing them into
The darkness
Thinking they could delay or even avoid
A fatal fall
But still the earth beneath our feet
Crumbled
So did the dream
But I woke with an empty feeling.
A gnawing pain that tore at my heart
It was a feeling I knew.
Helplessness
I feel helpless right now.
I wonder if deep down, everyone does
Not just those of us watching the maw of authoritarianism
Consume freedom
But those marching in lockstep
Toward the cliff
Fleeing one slippery slope (that they call Wokeness)
Toward another
I am not sure we can avoid a plummet
We human creatures
Into the dark depths of fear and hate
The clock is ticking
We may well plummet and take all of creation with us.
But I have been told
By people who have watched the world collapse before
Not to “tire of doing good”
Not to sit silently, stolidly
A watcher
Because even though the world may crumble
Our souls do not need to
There can be chaos without
And a kind of peace within
A freedom
To be compassionate and kind
I cannot do great things.
But as Mother Teresa reminds us
I can do small things with great love
There is an empty shelf at a food bank
That I can fill
There is an LGBTQI+ friend, battered by the regime
That I can welcome and embrace
There are lies I can counter with facts (whether anyone
listens or not)
There is hate I can counter with love
As I love my neighbor, even if they fly a Trump flag
And cheer mass deportation
This seems to be the question
What can we do now
In this moment?
We do not know what is in that abyss
(we can guess)
We do not know if we will survive
We do not know who might survive with us (if we do)
But we can carry the light
We can carry love
And when all is said and done
We can pick each other up
And slowly climb
Jacob’s ladder
Not to heaven
But to a new earth
That is like heaven
Am I a fool
To believe that what I do
matters?
Probably
But hopefully it is the foolishness of the cross
The foolishness of servanthood and sacrifice
The way
For the wisdom of God is greater than human wisdom
And god chose kenosis, emptying
As the Sacred MO (modus operandi)
Jesus is proof positive
So we must do what we can
To keep the light of love burning
We are going to need it
And it will (I do believe), work
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