Now what?

One of my great challenges as an essayist and perennial speculator has always been choosing a topic that is both specific and broad. My journal is largely filled with very specific ideas and experiences, but those do not always translate directly into common experiences. My great joy remains finding the common ground. This week, I feel as though while common ground is present, few people want to linger there. Much mental space has been devoted to following current events through news outlets and social media. Few conversations are held face to face. I suspect we need the mask, the comfort of distance and filter.

In a timeless tale, political news is grim. This candidate is a criminal. That one blunders. This one is a career liar. That one a bully. This one ineffective. That one slanders. This one a savior. Oh, but wait, you must be mistaken or worse, for mine leads the way. My candidate is flawed, but certainly yours is worse: markedly and willfully worse. They, and we, play to our fears.  Are we not all placing bets without full disclosure? Will we not all feel slightly betrayed as the curtain unravels, and only a flawed and slightly stooped individual remains? It is not unlike being at a certain theme park and needing the costumed character to be the fulfillment of our expectation. There are roles to be played.

An then, there was a fresh round of racial violence. A pattern seems to have developed on social media.  First, a few news and twitter engaged POC and a few whites will decry, rage, and mourn the events. It spills lightly onto Facebook. There will be disbelief and fear. Their grief and anger will spark both curiosity and sympathy among their more liberal friends. Facebook will not be able to withstand the onslaught of news and pithy memes with actors, animals, and housewives, and will give way to graphic videos and statistical charts.   My more satirical and quick witted friends will come up with 10 words that say it all, and thus there will be nothing to add.  Because I'm not a great satirist or particularly efficient, I will both exceed 10 words and fail to make a meme.  Meanwhile, more conservative friends and family will have become slightly enraged at the instability of it all. The ceaseless whining. The ingratitude. The incessant need to delve through grief and fear, pushing for justice. What about pulling one's self up by the bootstraps.

A new bombing. But this one has not been marked by many calls to prayer and action. There has been little distinction between perpetrators and victims. Oh, we are a little sad, but not outraged. I myself have given no public displays, preferring to turn off the news and go hiking. To enjoy the evening haze instead of putting on sack cloth. Mea Culpa. I wash my hands in the river, take a picture of small legs, and hope I raise adults of good character.

It's mind numbing. It feels as though the world is one big competition of misery. Either we win at the sad game, or we completely disengage. We play the six degrees of sadness and rage, hoping our distal relationship trumps another's. When we cannot play and win, we sigh and move away with relief. It's not our job to care. Perhaps though, the not caring is catching up with us. There is a place between keening and wailing and turning away. A place that allows the light to come.

We do not seem to have the words to say: I'm listening. I'm watching. I'm taking measure.
Nor do we seem to have the words to say I will do nothing, because I can't. I'm tired. Can we be tired together? Or the words to say, I cannot now, but maybe later. And mean it. Or this is not enough, but its where I'm at.

I don't know how to get there this week, but again and again in this week's lectionary I see the unknowing, the rising, and the restoration. Not because of any one great thing, but through many small acts of showing up and continuing on.  Singularly, none of us is enough is enough to stop the bleeding. Together, we just might. A bandage here, a hand there;  a soft heart, an open ear. Holding hearts with humor, empathy, service, and holy silence.
Tonight, we sleep. Tomorrow we rise.