I’m writing less than 24 hours after the election was called. If I didn’t owe my wonderful assistant Robin this newsletter by tonight, I’d be tempted to hide out. I wouldn’t fault myself or any of us for doing that right now, but I’m actually grateful to be sitting here at the end of a long day, forced to reflect, forced to face my grief.
I learned something from Emily, hospital chaplain, that I share with my clients constantly: Comfort through facing. As Emily and her colleagues sit bedside with dying or desperately ill patients and as they are present to families, it’s actually more painful to ignore what is going on. This isn’t some metaphorical pain they are in. The only comfort that might come is through facing what is happening. Tonight’s writing is one of my attempts to do that.
There is so much good writing going on right now—political, spiritual, soul-searching, grieving, analyzing, calls to action or permission to be sad. I’m tempted give a list of links, tempted to get into some kind of campaigning mode, tempted to send around things that might make me look wise, appropriately aggrieved, righteously angry.
But I keep thinking about my conversation with Emily this morning on my commute. She’s been going to on online sangha for a year (Susan Piver’s Open Heart Project) and I finally joined. Over the years, I have become more and more transformed by meditation and by Buddhist teaching, and this seemed like the next right step. Also, I knew I would need it this month. Emily said, “What I love about Buddhism is that it teaches us we are all waking up. Our task is to be with what is arising.”
That’s all I have to say to myself tonight: How can I be with what is arising? This is a radically different response than martyrdom, classism, blame, hate, revenge, sanctimony, resignation, denial, or numbing. And it makes rooms for emotions—grief, fear, sadness, confusion, anger, disappointment. I’m not talking about toxic positivity or spiritual bypassing here. I am talking about facing all of it, which is only possible when we have community and spiritual practices to hold us up. Strong individual values won’t do it. Reading the news won’t do it. Self-care won’t do it. Not even moral outrage by itself will help us face what is arising. There is a place for all those things, of course. But they will not bring the healing, understanding, and yes, change, that we long for.
I plan to get up early tomorrow morning and meditate with strangers from around the country. Then I will walk at sunrise. Then I’ll unload the dishwasher and go to work. After work, I’ll meet Robin for a drink and thank her for the soup she left at my door tonight. And I will try to ask, “What is arising? How can I be with it?” And, like has happened to me thousands of times before, I’ll get a nudge. And then another one after that. I’ll feel my ancestors at my back, I’ll feel my children watching me. As Valerie Kaur says, this isn’t a four-year project. It’s a 40-year vision. And I would add—400 years overdue. So many of my brothers and sisters have been going through much worse every day of their lives. Love compels me to stay awake.