Since the election I've - we've - been experiencing shock, grief, fear, futurizing, all sorts of emotions. Personally I'm looking into a bleak and sometimes terrifying future. In my mind we've just experienced the beginning of what Germany experienced in the early 30's (1933?) when Heir Hitler was elected to office. The Third Reich lasted only about 12 years, til the end of WWII, rather than the thousand years it was projected for. I don't think I'm being too hysterical if I think of America now as having just initiated the Fourth Reich. We may be looking at 8 years of extreme damage, and a lot of extreme damage can be done in that amount of time, as we so clearly know. Nothing the president elect is saying or doing offers hope; everything he is saying and doing supports my thesis.
I'm writing this because I haven't been able to write lately, not knowing what to say, sorting through my feelings and thoughts, struggling to find a place to "land" with it all, knowing there may be no such place. Wondering what "leaving it open" means now. I've read various Buddhist writer's blurbs (see Lion's Roar magazine online) about how to approach this situation. Some I find saccharine and unsatisfying. Some make some sense to me. Between the extremes, for me, of taking to the streets and passivity, I'm searching for how to be loving and compassionate - I still hold these as dear, and now somewhat more challenging than before - while remaining realistic, aware, prudent, not wedded to fear or anger or numbness, non-violent both outwardly and inwardly.
When the burnings and shootings and hate crimes and political policies of destruction take serious hold, will I be able to remain "accepting"? Will I offer myself, my children, my beloved wife, to the fires of hatred without resistance, calling it, and meaning it, God's Will?
Any way, this is where I am now, so probably the tenor of the blog has changed for a while. When I'm in this moment, and not in the future I'm seeing, or the past I know about, it's pretty ok. Maybe that's really all we have, after all, which I'm sure is true, and yet now not all that reassuring. We're off to Bangkok by air today, then on to Chiang Mai for just a few days before heading up to Pai for a couple of weeks, and then down to Thung Wua Laen for the imagined longer haul. All is in flux. All is open. All is unknown (or is it?)
Be well, dear friends and family. Take good care of each other.
I'm writing this because I haven't been able to write lately, not knowing what to say, sorting through my feelings and thoughts, struggling to find a place to "land" with it all, knowing there may be no such place. Wondering what "leaving it open" means now. I've read various Buddhist writer's blurbs (see Lion's Roar magazine online) about how to approach this situation. Some I find saccharine and unsatisfying. Some make some sense to me. Between the extremes, for me, of taking to the streets and passivity, I'm searching for how to be loving and compassionate - I still hold these as dear, and now somewhat more challenging than before - while remaining realistic, aware, prudent, not wedded to fear or anger or numbness, non-violent both outwardly and inwardly.
When the burnings and shootings and hate crimes and political policies of destruction take serious hold, will I be able to remain "accepting"? Will I offer myself, my children, my beloved wife, to the fires of hatred without resistance, calling it, and meaning it, God's Will?
Any way, this is where I am now, so probably the tenor of the blog has changed for a while. When I'm in this moment, and not in the future I'm seeing, or the past I know about, it's pretty ok. Maybe that's really all we have, after all, which I'm sure is true, and yet now not all that reassuring. We're off to Bangkok by air today, then on to Chiang Mai for just a few days before heading up to Pai for a couple of weeks, and then down to Thung Wua Laen for the imagined longer haul. All is in flux. All is open. All is unknown (or is it?)
Be well, dear friends and family. Take good care of each other.
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