“If ever I I have seen the sunrise, and known it’s time for bed, if ever I have breathed in deeply, and felt like I was dead … then I have not been, I have not been in love.” Soon or Never – The Punch Brothers.
Blessed is the half-light of a shrouded sun that peeps above the mountains. It casts a gold veneer upon the pavement outside the window, reveals itself to the jagged white edge of Klahhane Ridge, and brings tepid warmth into the room.
The morning drizzle has bedecked the winter branches with shimmering jewels of moisture, each containing an inverted world.
And yet it is all to easy to brush aside such wonders while water boils on the stovetop and the reality of a thousand crises intrudes upon my morning.
It often takes a physical act of will for me to stop and acknowledge that there is something grand and beautiful outside. Wonder doesn’t always crash into me. There are too many things to worry about for me to stumble through this world in gaping, childish awe. Yet, to disavow the capacity for awe is to throw away one of my most cherished qualities of being human. Better to force out a little love, than to leave true beauty unappreciated.
Amidst the madness and cruelty of the last year in politics, there has blown a hard prevailing wind of hard-heartedness, antipathy over compassion, othering of outsiders. The cold light of screens turned us away from our windows, from our neighbors.
Absolute ugliness, ignorance and vile self-interest dressed itself in the robes of practicality.
We’ve got to get tough. Who gives a damn about those trees anyway? You’re soft? We need jobs, not trees! You are brainwashed to want these people living in your neighborhood. They’re the worst. Don’t you know they are going to stab you in the back, when your back is turned? I know. You are going to have to work harder and sacrifice and fill your hearts with hate, but don’t worry about me. I’m trustworthy. I’m looking out for you.
Yet even those of us who smelled the con, are not immune. The stream of words have power over us too. They are meant to cow us, intimidate us and spend our energy at these provocations.
It is a victory for the bully and the trolls for us to see the world as a darker place, to miss more sunrises because we are caught up in a vomit of lies and outrages. If you were ever bullied in school, you might remember how words, through sheer power of repetition, can cause you to doubt yourself.
So are we, the enemies, told that we are useless, stupid and that we create no value.
They don’t want to convert us, they want to make us shut up and disappear. They want to tweak us into angry, foolish words, or better yet, violence, so that they can better turn their machinations against us. The ones who spit at beauty, could have no greater victory than to take the ugliness inside them and spread it around.
Make room for the “doers,” the Chevron corporation tells us in its self-congratulating advertisements, telling us there is something noble in mindless drilling, unchecked rapacity and little care about what consequences follow actions. 2016 was the third year in a row to set the record for highest global temperatures. Nice job doers! What else you got?
Politics has become personal. It will change how much snow you see upon the mountains in the morning, the plants and animals that you see. It has to do with who you see when you look at yourself in the mirror in the morning.
The fight back will be multi-tiered, taking place on the floors of congress, in the streets, in the paths of war machines, and machines that dig pipelines. It will take root in your everyday conversations with friends neighbors and families.
I hope we can protect our people, our planet and our values — just as we guard against the threat that darkness will pollute our hearts.