My dear friends of compassion,
This is a hard morning. I too am in dismay, if not despair. The menacing clouds of war and vengeance that loomed so close last night now shadow our hopes and obscure the dawn. The storms we thought unthinkable have arrived, with forecasts of sharp and damaging hail, cutting wind-shears that spawn tornados of unraveling, retribution, and death. Some among us may become refugees.
We trusted our neighbors and friends to discern truth from lies, and they did not. We clung to a faith that love and joy trump fear and division, and they did not. We thought the plain evidence of a world on fire would carry water where it’s needed, and it did not. We stood shoulder to shoulder doing work that is real, gave generously, and brought the best of ourselves to our labors, and it was not enough.
We believed that the arc of the moral universe is long, but bends towards justice, and… well that remains to be seen. It is far too soon to comfort ourselves with proverbial silver linings, but the darkness of this morning begs for some glimmer, some sliver of lightness concealed in the gloom.
My neighbors and friends who chose this path may be misinformed, may be shortsighted, may have allowed fear to clench their fists and hearts, may even prove right in some or many ways, but I insist, as Mahatma and Martin insisted, in the essential goodness of people. I remind myself to assume good intentions; sociopaths may deceive the majority, but they are not themselves a majority.
Pendulums swing. If all that we feared for 2025 occurs as promised, the true nature and impact of these awful projects will become obvious soon enough—to enough—and then the self-correcting experiment of our resilient humanity will prevail over our fragile humanness. This, too, shall pass.
In the meantime, we will harbor one another. We will set aside the word “mine.” We will embrace the always-intimate presence of our vulnerability, and we will open our doors to the even-more-threatened among us. Just as this day’s dark clouds conceal slivers of light, we will conceal the innocent from rampaging forces of hatred. If necessary, we will construct railroads underground, in car-trunks and shipping containers, with floorboards and pronouns and courage, and we will do this because we have always done this.
The political world is powerful and far-reaching, but Mother Nature holds the ultimate line-item veto. The laws of physics are not subject to popular vote. It was 78 degrees here in PA on election day, and today may break records at 80 or more. There are cards up her sleeve.
I would have preferred a Great Turning, from brinkmanship to kinship, from ambition to compassion, from bitterness to kindness. Yesterday this nation chose a different kind of turning, and the horizon appears dark and foreboding.
Let us find slivers of silver light among the clouds: in a seventh-generation view of history; in our own resilience and determination; in wilderness; in the pure starlit skies above all clouds; in the essential goodness of our humanity; and in one another.
JD Stillwater
jdstillwater.earth