Every Year, Fall Speaks to Us About Seasons of Life, and Death

Fall is such an instructive season. Of course, any season or any moment can be such, if we can allow it to be. I’m writing about the fall because it’s the time we’re living right here and now. And because the lessons are so blatant. We see the changes, see impermanence held so clearly in the embrace of beauty. Once colorful, shining flowers are now withering and dropping off their now brown, dry stems. The once lush green leaves are turning miraculous colors, only to wither and drop off, leaving trees naked to the cold. The once warm air is now, slowly, fitfully, changing to cold.

 

We can learn so much from just looking and feeling, not only the changes in the flowers and air, but our responses to it. We can learn from our joy over the colors as well as our fear of what might come next, with winter.

 

In a meditation recently, the seasons came up in dramatic fashion. Maybe it was because of the election, or the climate emergency, or my own conundrums with aging, but I suddenly felt something that is almost forbidden to speak about. I felt and saw myself buried in soil, dead. It was so frightening. I wanted to do anything I could to run away from the mere thought, or to explode the image. I considered who I could call to help free my mind from the image and get comforted.

 

Maybe the image reminded me how much we don’t know about dying. We don’t know when or how or what it might mean. It’s clearly the great unknown. But then I asked myself what could I, myself, do, right then, to help me live with this? What could help me face this? Was the season somehow instructive? Could the fear be used as a soil in which to personally, spiritually grow?

 

I started imagining doing or picturing different things. I studied my response to each imagined action and noticed if I freaked out ⎼ or felt ok. I thought of my wife’s flowers. She’s an amazing gardener. Our home in spring and summer, and to a lesser extent, in the fall, is surrounded by their beauty. And I thought of the trees I loved. There was inspiration imbedded in the flowers and trees.

 

As I pictured my body lying in the soil, I unbelievably felt flowers grow from me. Never before⎼ never ever before did I feel this thought as a comfort. Never. But maybe what turned the soil from something traumatic to something fruitful is the love I felt. Maybe there was something in the love. The flowers I saw in the dream were, after all, my wife’s. Maybe loving her right then was enough to help me realize this moment right now was enough; that nothing was lacking in my life.

 

And maybe by facing this directly, something in me flowered? Maybe the image of death was a distraction of sorts from my meditation⎼ or maybe it was the object of the meditation.

 

It’s so very difficult to accept, live fully with, the reality that I’m going to die someday… Yet, possibly, if I could simply notice and accept the reality of death, without fear making me cling to it or hide from it, I could move on without fear to face whatever the moment held for me. Facing this fear would hopefully help me face any fear. I could learn from the emotion without it clouding my mind or heart and act freely and appropriately….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

Once We Break the Bonds Committing Us to Truth, All the Beasts of the Human Mind Can Be Released: The Shot that Rang Out from the Golf Course

I was unnerved, so very disturbed by the shot that rang out yesterday (9/15) from a Florida golf course.

 

And it wasn’t only because the shooter seems to have intended to aim at, and kill a fellow human being, and a presidential candidate, but was thankfully thwarted by a Secret Service agent. That intention is despicable enough. But the whole context was shocking, the timing, the election. Just when a shift in people’s perception of DT was being reported, from the polls, and the debate⎼ just when so many more people had been coming to recognize the craziness he spreads to all of us, the threat, and then this happened.

 

And now, this newest example of intended gun violence is sharing the media news cycle with how DT would lie, say or do almost anything to get his way, no matter who he might hurt. How he used racist lies about Haitian immigrants to rile up his base, to shock and destabilize our nation and spread anger, hate, and the sense of continuous threat. And the result of his comments? Bomb threats and other violence are being aimed at those he maligned and hurt, and the city they live in. He and his VP were just beginning to be held accountable in many media sources when the Secret Service agent’s shot rang out.

 

But the mere attempt to kill a political leader in this country is shocking.

 

DT has continuously, from 2016 to today, viewed our nation through a dark lens, describing us as a crime-ridden, failed, “third world” country. He talks about not being able to go out for a loaf of bread without being raped, mugged, or shot at. Most of us go out every week without getting mugged or raped or shot at. Despite FBI statistics showing a historic 26.4 reduction in murders and similar reductions in rape, robberies, and crime overall in 2024, we might still fear violence due to the anger, hate, and sense of grievance DT stirs up. He helps create the division and violence he describes and attributes to others.

 

For example, his violent rhetoric has helped turn compromise into a dirty word, helped  turn people who have different viewpoints into enemies. He undermines political cooperation by turning discussion from a way to share viewpoints and create a greater understanding, to a way to destroy opposition. He thus undermines democracy itself.

 

In a specious manner, he makes claims that the violence he incited was caused by those who have revealed his role in said violence. For example, he said President Biden was trying to overthrow the United States by saying DT was a threat to democracy. Meanwhile, on Jan. 6 it was DT who actually tried to overthrow the constitution and the will of the American people (and then continued to lie about it ever since). His statements misrepresent the facts and the blame is his own.

 

His constant lying undermines not only the specific facts he distorts, but a general sense of truth, or reality. Once we break any commitment to truth, all the dark, imagined, feared beasts lying dormant in our minds can be released….

 

*To read the whole article, please click on this link to The Good Men Project.

Just Listen to What He Says. Listen: Many Report on the Drip of Normalcy and Neglect the Flood of Offensive Nonsense

If we doubt that much of the corporate media is helping DT with the way they cover him, just listen to what he actually says. We just need to listen, carefully, if we can stand it.

 

Even I, when I read the text of his statements, find myself normalizing him. I read or listen and look for a drop of normalcy, or for how his followers would hear him. I subconsciously do the work he wouldn’t do and look for meaning or critical thinking amidst all the gibberish, and then dismiss the gibberish. But right there on the page, right there on the screen where he stands, his words are often nonsense, and offensive, frightening nonsense.

 

The major reason he’s still in this race, and not being laughed off the stage, is because so many of those who support him are locked behind a wall of disinformation or bias and fictionalize him, and those who report on him are either afraid of him and told to normalize him by corporate higher-ups, or are inured to his weirdness and self-absorption. Many see the drip of normalcy and neglect the flood of incoherent, belligerent, and offensive inanity. We must not allow ourselves to get so used to him to the point that he uses us.

 

The recent debate provided a good example of his belligerent inanity. I almost felt sorry for him a couple of times because he was so out of his depth, so lost and out of control. He had no facts to show he cared about issues and people, and often pushed beyond the debate agreements of 2 minute comments to aggressively ramble on with conspiratorial lies.

 

And the simplistic, malignant nature of these lies almost surprised me. I didn’t expect him to so blatantly repeat on national tv the weird crazies he repeats on smaller stages. For example, his old debunked refrain about millions coming across the border to steal and rape, even repeating racist disinformation about Haitians stealing pets to eat them. He ignored the fact that most Haitians in the city were here legally, and immigrants in general are less likely to commit crimes then other U. S. residents, certainly less likely than DT himself.

 

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” said Trump. The police and other city officials have repeatedly said there were no such reports, but DT claimed it was true because he saw it somewhere on tv.

 

Of course, when asked directly at the debate if he wanted the Ukrainians to win the war to defeat Russian invaders, or if he would veto a national abortion ban, he showed his true values and that, maybe his ramblings serve a purpose all his own, and refused to answer the actual question asked.

 

Recently, at a Fox “News” town hall, he was asked about the mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia that led to four deaths and multiple injuries. DT avoided the question to talk about the support he received from Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán, the same autocrat he mentioned at the debate as a foreign ruler who respects him.

 

“’It’s a sick and angry world for a lot of reasons…’ Trump said. ‘And we’re going to make it better, you know, Viktor Orban made a statement, he said, ‘bring Trump back and we won’t have any problems.’ He was very strong about that.’” Never a comment about gun safety, or a sliver of compassion for the victims and their families….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

Preserve the Constitutional and Peaceful Transition of Power

Now that DT has lost the election, I⎼ and so many others⎼ would like to just ignore him and starve his malignant narcissism of attention. Ever since 2016, there was always the desire to just turn him off. And this is the best time to do so. Last Saturday and Sunday the headlines were filled with faces other than his, of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris—and Stacey Abrams.

 

We wish we could just turn him off, but we can’t. He won’t let go or concede. He is so desperate; he could put our whole nation at risk. DT and his GOP followers are blatantly working to undermine the heart of the U.S. constitution, by grasping at the power to keep himself in office. At a news conference, DT’s Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo called for “a smooth transition to a second Trump administration.” At the very least, DT aims to seize the headlines, and whine “I am the victim, here. I have been defrauded once again.” He has committed so many frauds, corrupt acts and crimes, so many malignant actions, they must fill his mind so entirely he sees them everywhere.

 

Despite no evidence whatsoever of there being any voter fraud, a fact proclaimed by his own Federal Election Officials, DT continues with his inconsistent and false claims. For the past week, his legal team has been suing several states, at first to stop vote counting, then to dismiss or invalidate the results. He has demanded recounts, for example, in Wisconsin and Georgia. His suits have mostly been thrown out, because they have no evidence to support their claims. He made similar false claims after the 2016 election, when he proclaimed, also without any evidence, that he would have won the popular vote if “millions of people” hadn’t been allowed to vote illegally, a fact his own commission proved false.  Why stop lying now?

 

So, if anyone has interfered in the legal voting, it was DT and the GOP. He called the Governor of Arizona last week, and Rupert Murdoch who owns FOX News, to complain about news that Biden was ahead in the count and that Fox had called the state for Biden. DT supporters tried to interfere or pressure the vote count in several locations, including Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Watching the scene in Maricopa County, Arizona, I couldn’t help but flash back to the scene in Florida, during the 2000 election, and the GOP supporters flown in to interfere in the counting of ballots.

 

DT started interfering in the election months ago, falsely claiming mail-in ballots were fraudulent, stopping states from sending them out, and stopping the USPS from delivering them. In California, the GOP put up fake drop-in boxes. And let’s not forget efforts to confuse or disenfranchise voters.

 

His appointee, Emily Murphy, head of the General Services Administration, has so far failed to recognize Biden’s win and release the funds and other resources so Biden can officially begin the peaceful transition of power.

 

Peaceful⎼ for Murphy to hold up the transition, she pushes the election into a chaotic situation that encourages anger, distress, fear and outrage, the emotional feeding ground for violence. The nation has been on edge for months, or 4 years, and this additional stress on our political system just further undermines the safety of this nation.

 

Meanwhile, DT is firing government officials, anyone who has ever said “no’ to him that still has a government post⎼ a move that could make the situation in the U. S. even more volatile. For example, he fired Mark Esper, Secretary of Defense, who opposed DT’s desire to send active-duty troops to quell street protests in Portland and other cities. DT fired other officials in the Defense Department and there is evidence he plans to also fire Christopher Wray, the F. B. I. Director, and maybe Gina Haspel, the C. I. A Director.

 

And while Covid-19 cases and deaths continue to mount (yesterday 145,000 new cases, the highest single day total since the pandemic began), DT continues to lie, to fail in protecting, or caring for the health and lives of the people of this nation. He will leave the new administration with the worst health crisis this nation has faced in over a hundred years, one he did little to contain.

 

And when Biden finally succeeds in entering the White House and being inaugurated, who would be surprised if DT tries to pressure the GOP into resurrecting the “party of NO” and interfering in every government function they can interfere in? Especially if the GOP hold on to a Senate majority, they can refuse to confirm cabinet nominees as well as judgeships and hold up the filling of other vacant positions. This could force the Biden administration to be more “centrist” in order to get anyone confirmed and make it extremely difficult for Biden and Democrats to actually do anything positive for us, the American people.

 

DT fears Biden showing voters that a Democratic (or democratic) government can improve the everyday lives of Americans. He wants to continue to divide the Democratic party as he has the nation and make anger and fear stain Biden as it stains him.

 

We would all like to take a breath, and we need to do that. The last few weeks have been exhausting. Let’s give ourselves a needed break, clear our minds, assess information⎼ and act effectively. We can make calls, write postcards and get out the vote for the two Senate positions up for grabs on January 4th in the run-off elections in Georgia. If Democrats win both these seats, the Senate will be evenly divided between parties.

 

Eight GOP Senators and six House members have already broken with DT⎼ let’s energize a movement. Make calls and protest to get more of the GOP to actually honor their oaths and protect the constitutional and peaceful transition of power.

 

And we need to both support and pressure President-elect Biden to issue executive orders as well as push legislation that will foster justice, economic security, and caring for the health and well-being of Americans⎼ good health care for all and a scientifically based response to the coronavirus pandemic and the climate emergency. Then maybe student debt relief, protecting voting rights, releasing immigrant children from DT’s cages and re-uniting them with their parents. Who knows where we can go from there? We can do this, just as we won this election.

 

What A Week: His Foot Is Lifted Off Our Necks⎼ Let’s Keep It Off!

What a week, wasn’t it? I can hardly believe it’s over. It was one that will long be remembered by each of us, in our minds and hearts, and history books. A time and an administration that hopefully will never be repeated and will soon, hopefully, come to an end. I don’t think any week of my life was consumed by so many moments I felt almost sick from anxiety.

 

Last night, I had a dream. Thousands of people in long lines were climbing down a steep mountain. I could see myself having to find footholds and lower my weight very carefully. There were people all around me. Some were disparaging, seemingly ready to trip people up. But most were helpful, giving each other tips about where to place a foot or get a good grip. Our attention was absorbed by the climb.

 

We have hopefully succeeded in climbing down from the height of anxiety and holding off dictatorship. We have hopefully made it to a point where, for a moment, we can breathe. Where one man’s malignant ambition, supported by thousands of followers, no longer presses its foot against our necks. Where we can and will celebrate. And then go back to work.

 

But almost immediately, before a winner of the presidential vote was clear, some were already laying blame, casting doubts, dividing us even further. I understand the followers of the wannabee dictator making false claims. They have been immersed in DT’s universe and will not, for a while, give up on their fantasy of a white nation, or their fears that Democrats are the red (or black or brown)  horde coming to steal their freedom.

 

What is more disturbing are a few Democrats claiming the election was so close because the Democratic Party went too far. They, we, were too extreme.

 

Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger (D, VA) was one of the loudest voices. She was angered by the fact that she barely won re-election and Democrats lost seats in the House. CNN labeled her message as speaking a “hard truth to her party.” She blamed two main “extreme” Democratic messages for the losses and cited the stated concerns of people in her district as the source. The first was “defunding the police.” The second was the talk about ‘socialism.’ But was she speaking a “harsh truth” or something else?

 

Alexandria Octavio-Cortez responded to her fellow member of the House in a tweet, “You can’t tell the Black, Brown, and youth organizers riding in to save us every election to be quiet or not have their Reps champion them when they need us… Or wonder why they don’t show up for midterms when they’re scolded for existing.”

 

Spanberger and others do express a truth, but it’s not the one they think they’re making. They’re expressing a truth about the success of the GOP messaging with certain audiences. Spanberger, and the voters in her district that she references, are just repeating back to us GOP propaganda, maybe Russian disinformation. They took ‘Democratic’ out of Bernie’s ‘Democratic-Socialism’ and demonized ‘socialism’ so the message would be obliterated. They turned “Defund the Police” into “destroy our defenders and let the hordes of chaos loose.” Or letting thousands of brown and black people speak to the truth of their lives?

 

But since the word ‘socialism’ is so distorted by the GOP branding, why not speak of a democratic economy? Wouldn’t a government of, by, and for the people care about the health of all its citizens? It would be interesting to hear GOP speak in opposition to a ‘democratic’ economy. And “defunding the police” is what? Re-thinking policing and how we treat each other? It certainly includes stopping the killing of black and brown people.

 

Democrats, or people who want to turn this nation into a true democracy with more equity in the economy as well as the political structure, need to work on including in our thinking and speaking not only those who agree with us but those who might agree with us if they listened. Not the committed White Supremacists, but others. A democracy requires a very diverse group of people to work together. That means everyone speaking their needs and viewpoints, but no one demanding their view or nothing.

 

On Friday, I listened to a Zoom panel discussion on “Where do we go from here?” with Naomi Klein, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and Astra Taylor. They clearly agreed with and expanded on AOC’s response. Although I have a slightly better view of President-Elect Joe Biden then Klein, Taylor and Taylor, I totally agree with their analysis of how he gives us a clear opportunity to move forward.

 

We are in a very fragile situation, said Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. We don’t have time to change everything. We need to first increase our cohesion and collaboration. The Democratic response to the GOP cries about socialism, the economy and the lockdown due to the pandemic was weak. Naomi Klein spoke to the intersecting emergencies we face (agreeing with Biden on their centrality) ⎼ COVID, racial injustice, climate, and the economy.

 

And all three panelists made clear the way to move forward is to show people that Democrats, and the government, can deliver, can create laws and institutions that meet their needs. We need to bridge urban and rural. We need things like the Civilian Conservation Corps to both get jobs and help the environment. We need to revitalize the care economy. People need their housing, food and health care to be covered. We do that, and we show the nation what our words mean by letting all of us live their truth.

 

Without this living example, then after two years of Biden we might see an increase not of democracy but of DTism, hatred, and division. We need to use this opportunity of a Biden presidency to pull together as the community of care, of 75 million people or more, so we can show ourselves as well as the rest of this nation what is possible.

 

*This post was syndicated by The Good Men Project.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teaching Yourself and Others How to Learn From Fear, Not Fear It

What are you feeling now? Just ask yourself (or your children, students, friends) the question and listen to and feel what comes up. It’s almost four weeks after the election. Have your feelings changed? How? Promise yourself to be gentle and listen not just to the words but the feelings and sensations that shadow and anchor every word you utter. Listen not just to what appears but how you respond to what appears. Feel your jaw and shoulders, your chest and belly. Where do you feel any tension? What is the quality of it, sharp, heavy, like pins and needles, hot or cold? Notice how your body expands with the inbreath, and lets go, settles down with the outbreath. Notice the sense of calm and quiet that can emerge when you step back and be aware of thoughts, sensations or your surroundings. Then breathe into the area and move on to notice another sensation.

 

This is one way to begin your day. When you act with the totality of your being, you are in harmony. Most fear arises from sensing a need to defend your self from an inner not an outer threat. You might be fighting your own inner battle or maybe you try to end any confusion you have over what is “the right way” by eliminating anyone who adds to the confusion or the complexity. When you do need to fight an actual external threat, study yourself and the situation and know the others involved. You can’t fight what you can’t see.

 

Many of us are feeling anxious and afraid. Many have pointed out that this election is different from any other. When there is so much that is unknown, fear is normal. Fear can be both a friend and an enemy, depending on how you treat it. It is an enemy if you turn away from it and fear it. It is a friend if it energizes you to wake up, notice, and learn from a threatening situation. When you turn away, you feel isolated and jittery. When you reach out to others, you more easily calm your thinking and step outside the dominion of fear.

 

Anxiety takes fear a step further. You add to a fear of the future a sense that you might not be able to face it. You feel inadequate, or fear being exposed as inadequate. You think the situation will mark you and turn others away, so your future might be ripped away. You feel like building a wall around yourself. But if you take action, you feel more open and powerful. If you join with others in taking action, you let go of fear and anxiety, isolation and powerlessness.

 

How you act also depends on how you think about discomfort. If you think it is wrong or abnormal to feel discomfort or stress, you will greet such sensations with fear and anxiety, and turn away from them. Only if you recognize that discomfort can be helpful can you allow yourself to be aware of it. If you notice the sensations of fear and anxiety before they get too strong, and recognize them for what they are, you can act in ways that utilize their energy without them dominating you. You learn from them and let them go.

 

This time of anxiety and uncertainty can also provide the opportunity to learn more about compassion. Compassion is the motivation, the energy to act to reduce suffering wherever you encounter it. When you do this, you might not even think you are being compassionate. You act because the action comes from a deep sense of who you are, in this moment; it is the only thing you can honestly do. You sense what and who is there with you, what feels right, uplifting—or harmful. Boundaries drop away along with fear and anxiety. You are basically selfless in that there is no intermediary between the sense of another’s pain (or your own) and the motivation to reduce it.

 

You can never know all the results or consequences of your actions, so please don’t act solely for some future political or social goal. As many say, you can’t focus only on the ends and forget the means. Such actions are divisive. But you can study your intentions. You can aim to do the best you can, in the way that fits you. Your actions come from your sense of rightness, not from being bullied into doing it.

 

Likewise, you can recognize the limitations and humanity of others, including anyone who would be a leader. Especially when you’re afraid, it is easy to project onto others mythical qualities, an intelligence, ability or moral quality, positive or negative, that is supposedly greater than your own, and thus let leaders make the decisions for you. You know this, so recognize it when it happens and let it go with laughter. To see what is in others you must know it in yourself. And if you feel called to be a leader, recognize that your wellbeing depends on the wellbeing of the vast mass of others. A diversity of other people needs to live in your heart as your guide.

 

A good friend and I were in a bookstore the day after Thanksgiving. He was reading me a funny passage from a book on Hillary Clinton’s childhood, and we were laughing. A woman standing next to us looked up, a bit startled, with some fear in her face, and said, “How can you be laughing at such a moment? I am too terrified to laugh.” I told her I understood. But that I deal with the terror better if I laugh. If I can laugh, I don’t get stuck on any thought or concern and can think more clearly about what to do. She smiled slightly, unsure. We all talked for another moment, and then went our separate ways.

 

So, I am trying to be gentle and kind to myself in these complex and difficult moments, and I wish you the same. And remember, when you are with others, they might be feeling the same way you do, but in their own way. So be kind to them, too. It might help all of us figure out how to best resist a future of hate and fear.

 

Dreaming of A New Movement

Sometimes, it’s hard to believe it really happened. I live in a hilly rural area in central New York. I look out my window. The sun is shining. The apple tree in front of my house still stands. Birds still fly. But somewhere, down the hill, maybe above the homes of neighbors I barely know, there is a cloud, a cloud I can only see out of the corners of my eyes. The cloud gets darker each time I listen to or read political news.

 

When I first moved here more than 40 years ago, my wife and I, and the group of people we moved here with, were the Hippie-radicals. We bought the land our neighbors and their gun club enjoyed as a hunting area. Maybe they thought we came here to deny them their freedom to hunt wherever they chose. There were tense moments when we had to escort armed hunters off our land. There was even a time we were threatened with being shot. Many people of color and LGBT people unfortunately know this threat much more intimately than I do.

 

But there was a movement then, a base of support. I would have been more frightened if I was alone. And there were increasingly good moments with the neighbors over the years. For example, once my wife and I got caught in a snowdrift and a woman down the road helped pull us out. And now, we know each other and are good neighbors if not friends. And this is what I hope can happen now, a movement of the majority of Americans. By majority I don’t just mean the 50% of the electorate who voted for Hillary, but those who would have voted for Bernie or just didn’t trust the system at all.

 

Mr. Trump uses his own form of terrorism, one we have seen too often in history. Acts of terror are carried out to spread fear through a populace and lead a country, especially a country claiming to be democratic, into a frightening double-bind. Anger and fear can lead a people to call for measures of revenge and protection: violent revenge not only against the specific people who carried out the attack but the religion, culture and anyone who even looks like the people who gave it life. Protection can include all kinds of measures to defend against further attacks. But as we learned from Edward Snowden and subsequent revelations, protection and revenge can lead to over-reaction and the destruction of the rights and liberties necessary to keep democracy alive. To protect democracy, we end democracy. That is terrorism’s goal. That might be Mr. Trump’s goal.

 

To eliminate the inhumanity that is ISIL requires studying and untangling the massively tangled web of beliefs, suffering and oppression that gave birth to it. To eliminate the threat that the new President represents requires the same. One aspect of ISIL is the absolute belief in the rightness of its ideology as well as its mission to destroy anyone who gets in its way or has different ideas. Mr. Trump calls for locking up or suing anyone who opposes him.

 

Spread enough fear and you can break the ties that bind us together. It can provoke people to hold on too tightly to their ideas of how things must be, degrade the value and examination of truth, and lose sight of the humanity of others. Society is held together by the most precarious of ties. It is not just buildings and institutions, but relationships, ideas, empathy and dreams. Mr. Trump spreads such fears.

 

Of course, his rhetoric has softened after the election. We don’t yet know exactly what he will do and must listen carefully to what he and other Republicans propose. But we also know that anyone who has spoken as he did in the election is not to be trusted. Even if, as some claim, his words were a tactic to gain power, such a means to power exposes, to some degree, his ends.

 

Fighting the ideas of Mr. Trump means not becoming who or what we oppose. To quote Gandhi: “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” It is too tempting to yell and assign blame, to hold too righteously to anger as our identity, and thus become like Mr. Trump. As many people have said, those of us who abhor terror and the politics of fear must fight not only against hatred but for democracy, for the rights, equity, humanity, and compassion that should characterize a government and are our best weapons against the terrorist ideology of Mr. Trump—or ISIL, for that matter.

 

One strategy we might use is for each of us to create a small, caring group dedicated to deepening our own education, developing mental and emotional awareness, and committing ourselves to act when necessary—it would help us all to find balance and limit the reach of our fears. Such groups can take the work seriously and also support us in playing and finding beauty in the world. We need to think as clearly as we can, and the greatest aid to clear thinking is energetic commitment to a deep examination of issues, combined with kindness and joy in being together, in being alive. Much of the news is depressing but that doesn’t mean we need to deny our selves or our friends joy.

 

So, I hope we find a way to improve the way we care for, support and educate each other, and not let fear drive us apart.

 

*Also: For some hope, read this article on student responses to the election of Mr. Trump.