"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere... A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."
― Martin Luther King, Jr.
***
A few days ago I drove from our home in Vancouver, Washington into Portland for an eye doctor appointment. It's a painful journey of less than half an hour ― painful because of what I can no longer turn away from. The freeway and the streets of downtown are littered with tents, some demolished from recent storms, some new and a little more sturdy, and most barely enough or totally inadequate to keep out the elements. Often there are also enormous amounts of garbage surrounding where these houseless people live.
I don't condemn the garbage strewn about. I condemn the predatory capitalist systems which treats human beings like garbage, worthy of no safety net or protection or care. Worthy of no human kindness.
I used to be numb, apathetic, and largely blind. It was an unconscious choice ― this turning away from human suffering. I didn't realize that I was doing it, that I was making this passive choice to not notice the pain of others.
Today I recognize with compassion that I couldn't begin to truly face and feel the suffering of other human beings during the many years that I abandoned my own. I simply wasn't able to witness, process, and hold something painful within anyone else with any kind of consistency or depth as long as I avoided, denied, and distracted myself from what I carried within my own heart.
Which is why heart-work is so invaluable. And so needed.
* * * * *
Over the course of the past 38 years of my gradual awakening, I've set several powerful and life changing intentions. Included in these are the vows to heal my wounds and to dismantle the obstacles within myself to love, to radically shift painful ancestral and cultural patterns for my children and future generations, to do my part in working to alleviate the suffering in our world, to grow and expand my circle of caring to ultimately include all of life, to do my best each and every day to do no harm, and to live my life as a prayer. Wow. I never guessed in the early years of my thawing out and emerging from the deep fog I'd unknowingly been in just how incredibly transformative these intentions would be.
And this reminds me of the people standing on street corners with their little signs. I used to turn away and act as though the human being before me was invisible. That was the old me, the one who was more numb and less willing to see, to feel, to know, to act. Because once I began to actually look at the person before me and see them, everything began to shift. And I had to act. I became compelled to extend human kindness.
Take Joseph. I know his name now. Joseph is often out on the corner at the Fourth Plain exit off I5 in Vancouver. I saw him enough times that I was moved to do more than extend my dollar bill, say bless you, and ask him, "What's your name?" He looked surprised and then answered, "Joseph." "Hi Joseph, my name is Molly." He smiled. "Nice to meet you." I smiled back, communicating I see you and you matter.
The trip to and from the eye doctor last week really got me. First, on the way there, there was this hunched over man crossing the street at the light I was stopped at. He held over himself a large tarp like cover to try to shield himself against the rain. He had a very noticeable limp and it took him a long time to make it from one street corner to another. His tennis shoes were worn away and looked like they barely held together. And his pain was palatable. I used to turn away. Now I cannot look away. And I wept. And prayed.
Then I was only blocks from the doctor office when I came upon a small man on the corner of Burnside and 13th. I didn't even notice what his little sign said. I noticed him. I noticed how thin he was, how he was hunched over, how his hair was white and the many deep lines in his face. Maybe he was somewhere between 70-75. Or maybe he was ten years younger but living on the street has taken so many years off his life. I immediately rolled down my car window as I approached the red light. "Here you go!", I exclaimed as I held $3 out to him. He smiled as our outreached hands briefly connected. "Bless you," I said and smiled. He smiled again. I clasped my hands together in a slight bow to him. Then this little man put his palms together, bowed, and said, "Namaste." "Namaste," I responded.
As soon as I drove away, I wept again. I weep now.
* * * * *
There are those who say that everything will be fine now that Trump is out of office. To those who believe that, I say that you are wearing the same blinders that I once did. Truly, anyone who believes that we're all on this road to a thriving economy "again" isn't yet seeing what I've come to see, to know, and to understand in my ever growing heart.
This patriarchal predatory capitalist system has always shut out huge portions of our population, and the numbers of those living at or below the poverty line have been growing exponentially. And, no, this hasn't just started since the pandemic. These Covid times have only served to increase and bring to the surface the extreme inequities that have always existed. Only now they're hitting the middle class more deeply than ever before. And more people are waking up to realize that something is horribly wrong.
Some just blame it on the Republicans. Or look at those sucked into QAnon as crazy idiots without recognizing that a core Q belief is that something is horribly wrong with our nation and world ― which is indeed true. Only it's not the "Deep State" of democrat-Satan-worshiping-Hollywood-elite pedophile-cannibals. (That's a mouthful, no pun intended.)
There is a choice other than adhering ourselves to the great limitations of the narrative that it's all simply the republicans/democrats' fault. These times, I believe, ask us to go deeper. And deeper and deeper. We're asked to see beyond the individual symptoms and polarities, to connect the dots of much larger pictures, and to grow our capacity to experience an ever growing expansive view of the roots of so much suffering, inequality and greed, and violence and devastation.
This is painful and courageous work. Which is why we all need each other. We cannot do this isolated and alone. And we cannot even begin to have a shot at radical vitally needed systemic changes without uniting behind our growing capacity to love and to experience the truth and what it is that matters most.
Which is something to ask ourselves repeatedly ― what most matters?
* * * * *
I don't believe that it's possible to get to what most matters in any kind of depth ― and acting on what is in such great need of human kindness ― without exploring with great courage and persistence where we are and how we got here. There are threads to follow which will lead us deeper and deeper into the larger pictures and vital truths which are essential to our human growth and evolution. At least this has certainly been my experience.
We don't want to say stuck in the unreality that the ________ (fill in democrats or republicans) will make it better and all we need to do is vote the morons from the other side out. We just don't. This is what's kept us stuck forever. And those in positions of power ― and from both major political parties ― who've sold their souls to their corporate donors feast off of the ignorance induced trance that these polarizing divisions and distractions endlessly propagandize us with. We wouldn't be facing all the incredible perils that we are today if there hadn't been a long, long process of deadening our human capacity to know, to see, to feel, to act, and to unite behind the essential truths of what truly matters.
It's not all Trump's fault. Or the Clinton's or Obama or the Bush's. Although they all have been part of a long list of who've NOT acted to bring about and fight for the enormous systemic changes that have always, always been needed and which are so crucial to the well-being of us all.
The prognosis is bleak if we humans don't dive deeper into our capacity for consciousness, kindness, generosity, truth, wisdom, and love. Our tolerance for violence will only continue to grow if we don't engage in our personal and collective interventions on the insanity we've unknowingly ingested, absorbed, normalized, are complicit with, and act out of.
Because it is insanity to give a pass to Medicare for All and fail to insist on healthcare as a human right ― and even in the midst of a global pandemic! It is insanity to continue to rape and destroy our only planet because the economic costs of changing our ways and dismantling the deadly status quo would be "too great" ― and as though leaving an unlivable Earth for our children and grandchildren is an acceptable alternative. Insanity. Funding endless wars and weapons of war and worldwide militarism is insane. Perpetuating the endless injustice, inequity, violence, dehumanization, and devastation of systemic racism is insanity. Allowing the conditions which birth tent cities and cause the Josephs of our nation to be standing on street corners which their little signs ― and all while continuing the massive redistribution of wealth upwards ― is unfathomably insane. And denying climate change is happening and justifying drill baby drill in the midst of catastrophic and continually record breaking wildfires and floods and droughts, hurricanes and tornadoes and typhoons, rising seas and the dislocations of millions of Earth's peoples, searing and killer summer heat waves and devastating winter storms, etc., etc. is all insane madness beyond words. And the list goes on an on.
This is the list of why we must wake up. NOW.
* * * * *
We humans can continue to ride on the surface, swallowing neatly packaged soundbites of propaganda as whole truths, while avoiding the truth. Or we could choose differently. We could dive into the roots of what plagues us and engage in the deeply brave ongoing process of peeling back layer after layer of our own ignorance, indoctrination, and illusions.
Whatever our religious or spiritual tradition, our race and ethnicity, our gender or age, our socioeconomic status and education, our life experiences and place on the continuum with ignorance on the one end and consciousness on the other, if we are alive and breathing there is more inner and outer work to be done.
This is the work of facing head on the impact within ourselves individually and collectively of the harmful cultural stories and beliefs and values, policies and politics, prejudices and biases which have been normalized and passed on to all of us, no exception. This is why working with our blind spots, thawing out from our psychic numbing, and engaging in the ongoing work of lifting the veils of our illusions is so important. It is a humbling, courageous, and deeply transformative process, one which I know many of you have already been on for some time.
And the journey continues of exploring, recognizing and healing, and transforming how we've ingested and been impacted by racism and white supremacy, patriarchy and misogyny, imperialism and colonialism, nationalism and militarism, corporatism and predatory capitalism and neoliberalism, and the pervasive polarizing and distracting propaganda that we are immersed in here in America and beyond. It is no small matter to say that the truth shall set us free.
And, truly, trading in our illusions for truth in an ongoing way is something that matters, and matters deeply. At least this has certainly been the path for me that has opened the eyes of my heart and grown my capacity for kindness, love, and fierce compassionate action. This journey also continues to strengthen my heart beyond what I could have imagined years ago, empowering me to now be able to see the Josephs standing on street corners... and so much more. And once we see, we have to act.
Otherwise the pain of being witness to human suffering and the suffering of other species is too great. And this is why the healing and strengthening of our hearts is so intimately linked with the healing and awakening of our world. This is the journey which I have discovered that empowers us with choices, with growing and evolving clarity of what is our part and purpose, and to engage in some form of action and activism ― which is the antidote to despair. Otherwise, without doing this inner and collective work, we just shut down. Like I once was.
Let us choose instead to do the deep work of opening and healing our hearts and meeting the great need for human kindness, generosity, and love. The voiceless and marginalized, the impoverished and oppressed, those who are pulled under into addictions and depression and cults of fear, and all those who are on the front lines of suffering and violence need for us to see them, to truly see them, and to act. We are all one family here on Earth. And we all matter. We all matter deeply.
Bless us all,
💔
Molly
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