Do you hear America singing?
Thoughts on a tough, sobering, scary, time
Thank you for your interest and feedback on my series about intimacy. We started on May 1 with Moving and the Intimacy of Memory, and went from there, culminating in the last two weeks, talking with authors Sarah Cypher and Garth Greenwell in celebration of Pride Month.
I will be sure to return to this topic. In the meantime, however, I’d like to turn my attention to our country.
Like many of us, I am deeply concerned about the fire hose of terrible threats to our democracy. To quote Josh Gondelman, “I can’t believe the Supreme Court has ruled that the President can sleep outdoors in a public space.” It’s true. The Supreme Court legitimized making homelessness a crime, and gave the US President blanket immunity from prosecution.
Or, another version, “I am so glad my body is regulated more than a coal powered power plant.” You get the picture. It’s grim.
A lot of us have spent our lives fighting to make our country a more inclusive and more just democracy, and a better, cleaner, more generous home. This is a never-ending process. A garden must be tended.
Today, I share some thoughts and wisdom from people to whom I turn in times like this, and frankly at all times.
First, a tidbit from Irish poet Paula Meehan. I heard her speak about teaching the Irish language [what we once called Gaelic] in schools. She said her best students were Somalian immigrants. Already attuned to speaking two unrelated languages, they were the quickest to pick up Irish.
Roxane Gay, in this week’s The Audacity. “After the debate, it was hard not to rend one’s garments and despair… Despair is a luxury. It is unproductive.”
Timothy Snyder, TWENTY RULES FOR SURVING TYRANNY: Rule 1: Do not obey in advance.
Rebecca Solnit: “What has most moved me in public life over the past thirty or forty years is people facing terrible odds without surrendering,” and
“Facing the nightmare of the far-right party’s success in the French election, left-wing politician Jean Luc Melenchon declared in a nighttime rally in Paris, ‘French people, the future of our common homeland will depend on your choice, whatever our skin color, our religion, our gender. Nothing is decided. Courage, young people! Hold fast! The future is what we make of it!’” and,
“We may not win, but it behooves us to do everything we can to do so, and that includes our words and their impact.”
In 2016, I was transformed by reading Solnit’s HOPE IN THE DARK, where she reminds us that excessive optimism and excessive pessimism are cop outs, and that each of us has a role to play in working toward a better future, because the future is unknown and not foreordained.
Finally, I leave you with words from the greatest patriot of all, Dr. Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail.
“I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.
I have no despair about the future. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are presently misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom.”
We have no choice but to put our shoulders to the wheel for the country we love.
Warm greetings for the Fourth of July. I hope you are celebrating with loved ones or having a day of quiet rest.
Love, Martha
Thank you to my former colleagues Amanda Andere and Bill Pitkin for inspiring parts of this newsletter.
Thanks. I needed that.
Wonderful post my friend!