Yule and the 78th Birthday Moon
Thursday gratefuls: Diane, healing. New computer getting setup. New ottoman. Studying parsha Bo. With Zohar and Zornberg. Finished reading Conclave. Now another Gray Man. PSA stable. Kidney functions a bit off. A1-C a bit high. Nothing too concerning to me. Vince. Alan coming to Conifer this morning. Talking with Tom. My life as a conversational flaneur. Moods. Emotions. Art Green. My son and Seoah coming. A birthday this month. Year of the Snake.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mussar friends
Kavannah 2025: Creativity
Kavannah this week: Rachamim, compassion practice-listen for the melody of the other
One brief shining: Aging resistance, a less frenzied, hot breath sorta response, a more relaxed, we can survive this attitude, yet still feeling to me like my way is to call out certain actions, especially those injurious to the planet and vulnerable people, while also tending these seed packets: pluralism, globalism, economic and racial justice, feminism, importance of the common good, support for the individual and individualism.
This political disaster feels different from the first Trump infection. Even though he may be sort of more organized with Plan 2025 held in his French fry greasy hand, his Burger King kid’s meal crown slouched rakishly on his orange haired head, and even though he and his cronies have-who can pass up the sports metaphor, football!-flooded the zone; as someone I read in the Washington Post said this is the imitation of competence. In reality it’s a scatter shot series of nods to the base: no to birthright citizenship, freeze all Federal money going out, hammer General Milley, Hegsteth, Kennedy, Gabbard.
This is not governing. It’s the politics of petty revenge. We’ll have to wait for days, those famous first hundred days, to see the metamorphosis, if any, of our nation’s institution. At some point the executive order Sharpie, a Sharpie!, will have to rest and cousin Donald will have to try for legislation. Court fights will be ongoing. We don’t know what’s happening quite yet.
This much I do know. My world, a world in which meanness and cruelty have a bad connotation, a world where the American dream of a people joined together by adherence to the idea of equal opportunity, equality before the law, of a nation that welcomes the poor, the huddled masses yearning to be free, will not perish.
We will tend with care the seeds of this remarkable and yes flawed experiment. Seeds like the Constitution. Also flawed, yet a reminder in its amendments and in the expansion of its protection through the courts, that it is our flawed document. Seeds like FDR’s New Deal which expanded the Federal Government’s role as protector of the least of those among us. Seeds like our liberal Christian churches, synagogues, mosques, Buddhist temples and retreat centers. Seeds like our academic institutions, like the NIH and the CDC. Seeds like our real history: slavery, slaughter of the indigenous, colonialism and those who have stood against these sins of our fathers and mothers now passed down to us the third and fourth and fifth and sixth generations.
And we will tend to ourselves and each other. Not allowing despair to take hold for too long. Encouraging the forms of declaring our dream still alive and vibrant. Supporting those who take up direct action. Donating funds. Showing up at protests and marches. Maybe forming bookclubs that focus on American history, on the American renaissance, on American authors of all colors, gender preferences, and religious backgrounds.
We are not down. We are not out. Our dream still guides this nation. We just have to help people wake up to the chances to embrace it.