“Whole world is waiting for a biopsy to come back.”
I first found this observation attributed to the novelist Michael Alenyikov. It also floats out there without attribution. Almost like a prayer. Without much doubt this is an anxious time in this country. And, as the quote or prayer has it, throughout the world.
I don’t spend a lot of time these days reflecting on politics on my social media platforms. There are a number of reasons for this, but chief among them is that politics is not what I want to spend my precious dwindling time on. Politics will, as Jesus said of the poor, always be with us. And feeling the sands falling so quickly, I’m feeling some urgency to focus on what I find most important.
I’ve long noticed how politics tends to bring out the worst in us. At least this is true for me. And, well, really, for most people I know as well. As we express ourselves politically it usually reveals our unexamined assumptions to the world. At the same time it shows our unwillingness to be vulnerable. And right with that our judging of others as less worthy one way or another.
So. On that negative side of the register, just not where I feel I want to be spending most of my time.
So, I don’t spend a lot of time on this subject.
However, politics is the nature of our humanity expressed in community. And, I care about our shared humanity. I care deeply. It’s just not my direct focus. Rather my focus is the great matter of life and death, of the contours of our spiritual lives. I am focused on the pointers of the heart, and of our practices. It is here I have give the greater part of my life, and it is here that I focus on my social media platforms.
So.
I do not in any way feel above the fray. And in the context of that quote about Jesus, it wasn’t that he didn’t give a lot of attention to the poor. In fact how we meet the poor, the disenfranchised, the lost and left behind was a central part of his teachings. Rather the line spoke to a moment. And we have many moments. Our lives have many aspects.
And so. As someone who sees the universe intimately wrapped up in tendrils of connection, it would be silly of me to try and cut off one very large part of that mess of interconnection.
As I suggested earlier politics means public, it speaks to how we live together. I looked a little more deeply into how the inner and the outer are not really two things last week. Here I want to reflect just a little more on how that manifests for us here and now.
In our little corner of the world we live in a republic. As Benjamin Franklin observed, if we can keep it…
I believe with that fact, living in a republic rather than a monarchy or under a military dictatorship there is a responsibility to be involved. As individuals we don’t have a lot of control, even in a republic - which are perhaps always largely oligarchic. Most of the power concentrates in a few hands. Certainly this is a truth about our republic. But there is some power held by individuals. And this power all turns on the ballot, whether to cast it, and for whom.
And there are elections where that vote counts for a great deal.
Tomorrow, for instance…
And. So. Here we are on the cusp of our national American presidential election. This, along with our many statewide and local elections, invites me pause to reflect. I suspect you have paused, you have reflected, as well.
But for me, here. In this place dedicated to the inner life. How do my larger views of the world, my hard earned perspectives, manifest in this time of a great national election?
And out of that what to say? What word can I share?
These are perilous times. In some ways these are wicked times. We are facing some major decisions about what direction we want this republic to go, and to some degree if whether we really want to be a republic.
This is, I believe, and deeply, the most momentous presidential election of my lifetime. Considering the eras I’ve lived through I think that’s saying something.
We, like much of the globe, seem to be wrestling with rising right wing populisms. They are rooted in several things. But the greatest of these is resentment and fear. They have their day in hard times. And these are hard times. These are dangerous times.
We are awash in problems, difficulties, and dangers.
There are those willing to tell people these problems are not complex, but simple. All that is wrong is caused by those others. Usually in our corner of the globe these others turn out to be people of color and foreigners. Especially foreigners.
In right wing populisms the fixes are draconian. They usually involve getting rid of the foreigners along with going “back” to something that was purer. A better time when “they” weren’t messing things up. Which as it happens takes away civil liberties for, well, usually women and people of color. These days it also includes LGBTQ folk. Emphasis on the T…
So, what’s an alternative view? What’s an alternative to right wing populism?
I believe it rises from a perspective of our radical interdependence?
Which flows out of a spiritual understanding that we are more intimately bound up together than the finest and precious of alloys. Or maybe a better image is that we are woven together like the most beautiful of cloths. And trying to undo this… Well, these are images. I think the realities they allude to are fairly obvious. Suffering for many. Usually the most vulnerable among us. Although there is also a lot of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face in this…
I suspect the alternative to right wing populism is that embracing of our interdependence. It isn’t easy. It calls for a certain generosity of heart. Which can sometimes be hard to feel. And it requires discernment. It is a perspective that should offer the greatest individual liberty consistent with not leaving the least among us behind.
Given the possibility, would this be done well? Probably not. Looking at humans, the best we seem to do in our political lives, is muddle toward the better.
But is that imperfect movement better than a retreat to old stories of superiority and threats from the other? I certainly think so.
I feel if we aim to care for the least, then that’s the rising tide that raises all boats.
If we vote from the perspective the wounded, the lost, the left behind, maybe we can open doors to a better world.
And now the voting begins. The choice is pretty stark.
The world awaits our decision.
The coin is a denarius from 63 before the common era showing a figure casting a ballot.