You the agent

“Sometimes when we look out, the world seems so dark. War, violence, hunger, and misery seem to abound. This makes us anxious and helpless. What can I do in my private little corner of life that could have any effect on the march of world events? The usual answer is: nothing. We then decide to do what we can for our own, and leave the great events to their domain. Thus, we opt out, and join the largest majority in the world: those who acquiesce. Believing ourselves to be helpless, we hand over all our power to forces and systems outside us that then act in our names; they go on to put their beliefs into action; and ironically these actions are often sinister and destructive. We live in times when the call to full and critically aware citizenship could not be more urgent. We need to rediscover the careless courage, yet devastating simplicity, of the little boy who, in the middle of the numbed multitude, in naive Socratic fashion, blurts out: ‘But the emperor has no clothes.’ When spoken, the word of truth can bring down citadels of falsity.”
~ John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us

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Sometimes when we look out, the world has gone batshit.

The emperor has no clothes, and yet so many still hail him as the messiah.

It’s baffling.

Here in Wisco, though, we just had a big ol’ win. A win for Wisconsin, but also a win for the U.S. of A. ‘As goes Wisconsin, so goes the nation,’ as the saying goes. O, that this might be the turning of the tides…

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In the mean time, back to our regularly scheduled programming of how to stay upright in these times. What to do with our limited resources to affect change, to hold up our neighbors, to love louder.

It’s daunting. It’s exhausting. It feels futile. It’s dispiriting. But it is also participation and effort, and with participation and effort come agency and heartening and seratonin and solidarity.

And then there’s a little win. Or a big win. And even when stuck in the futile, we are reminded that all those little things we do matter. They all leaven the loaf of hope and make impossible things happen. Lord, have mercy.

So we keep doing the things. We knock doors for elections and we feed meals to the hungry and we bring an ear and a shoulder to those who are under attack and we stand in solidarity and love. We insist on good food and exercise and taking care of ourselves and we make ourselves a nuisance. We work polls and find allies in the unlikeliest spaces and walk in the woods and read good things.

We do what we can for our own, yes, because without that there is nothing. But we also don’t leave the great events to their domain. We don’t opt out.

We don’t acquiesce.

We make some good trouble.

Senator Cory Booker held the floor of the Senate for 25 hours and 5 minutes this week, standing up against the madness that is the Trump Administration in this country, making some seriously good trouble. He had no shortage of material to rail against, only the limitations of one human body to stay erect and continue speaking. He saw his podium, and he stepped up courageously. His record speech happened to overlap almost entirely the 13 hours that the polls were open in Wisconsin. That was some good energy to vote by.

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“Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”
~Rep. John Lewis, tweet from June 2018

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We may not have Cory Booker’s podium, but we have ours, no matter how small.

Do not fail to step up.

And always remember, that while much is required of us, it is not all in action. We need silence. We need solitude. We need time to recharge, to realign ourselves, to hold true north. And every bit of that time and energy–every bit of that internal combustion and contemplation–is just as valuable as the time and energy that we put forth outside of ourselves, bolstering the world as best we can. Our internal reserves are not only the mitochondria of our external work, but they themselves tip the world in the right direction.

We are the spiritual collective.

Do not fail to tend the spirit.

It’s time to love louder.

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“Real presence is the ideal of all true individuation. When we yield to helplessness, we strengthen the hand of those who would destroy. When we choose indifference, we betray our world. Yet the world is not decided by action alone. It is decided more by consciousness and spirit; they are the secret sources of all action and behavior. The spirit of a time is an incredibly subtle, yet hugely powerful force. And it is comprised of the mentality and spirit of all individuals together. Therefore, the way you look at things is not simply a private matter. Your outlook actually and concretely affects what goes on. When you give in to the helplessness, you collude with despair and add to it. When you take back your power and choose to see the possibilities for healing and transformation, your creativity awakens and flows to become an active force of renewal and encouragement in the world. In this way, even in your own hidden life, you can become a powerful agent of transformation in a broken, darkened world. There is a huge force field that opens when intention focuses and directs itself toward transformation.“
~ John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us