Many disastrous things loom on the horizon, great harm is being wrought right now, and much of our brokenness is being revealed. It’s been a rough few months for those of us who hope for a living, who endeavor to move from love towards justice, who believe we can live differently.
I just deleted a long paragraph which started with Putin and ended with state sanctioned school prayer and also included environmental disasters that you may not know about and great lament over Roe in an attempt to list all that ails us. It’s too much, and the listing distracts from my purpose and point.
Never will I suggest that we ignore or dismiss those very real, very alarming facts, nor the feelings that emerge when we face, for example, experiencing the 6th great extinction of species on the planet. Our highest Court no longer recognizes an inherent right to privacy, perhaps no inherent rights at all. All of these things are very real, and the alarm and fear justified.
But it is how we move forward that I am concerned about right now. Many are confessing deep anger, hatred, and confusion And I get that. I am still waking up weeping, and occasionally find myself just staring into the near distance. But honestly, I know I am feeling a little bit now the way I will when the climate disasters are undeniable -this has been coming for a long time and we have allowed it. It wasn’t hard to predict, and all the signs have pointed to this. On a functional level, women and girls in several states have been barred from reproductive care for years. Colorado had a winter wildfire this year that destroyed 1000 buildings, a disaster radically exacerbated by climate change. All predictable, and all affected by my actions and inactions.
For me, owning up to that complicity is the first step to action. That which convicts me is that which I must change. That which I cannot tolerate must be shifted, its power removed. And in this reproductive rights upheaval as in all things climate change, those who disguise themselves as representative of faith are anything but. Those who claim to be champions of health and safety are in fact its destroyers. Law enforcement and crime prevention is often like this, too. Different post subject really, but similar in the remedy being its own problem.
This is part of what we in the spiritual care world call ‘shadow work’ and it is crucial work to do be done before we can move forward. It is work we must continually do to remain healthy. It is work we must teach others to do in order to form the communities we need. And it’s scary.
Lying to ourselves is the norm. Separation, deflection, caveats, behavioral excuses -running from the things about us we don’t like, the ways we have behaved is absolutely normal. But it’s also where most of the truth lies within us, where many of our lessons are buried, waiting for us to really see them. And once we deeply reckon what it is that moves our hearts -in antipathy or in attraction- we can respond to it. We can heal those wounds. We can find new ground that isn’t poisoned by all of that which we had named as the other when it really lived within us.
None of us has to be able to complete grand or sweeping projects to make a difference in this endeavor, this truth telling to clear the space to move forward, this honesty to reveal where we must do the work. In fact, those top-down edicts or shifts rarely take hold further into the people’s hearts and minds, their lived behavior. So put aside any fears that to be effective, you must write a top-selling book or all of a sudden become an activist or be able to speak to a crowd.
No. it is in the small things that the biggest changes have to come, and from where the most hope and vision also come. We regularly sacrifice what we know to be true for an illusion of keeping the peace, or not rocking the boat, as it were. But each of those little sacrifices cuts us, lessens us, and it cheapens what we know to be true.
We can no longer live as if our lies will protect us, for the polite falsehoods we perpetuate are in truth destroying us. This also does not mean that we must become suddenly confrontational in all things. And I have no idea what it is that your shadow work will reveal as your work to do. Do racists and white supremacists make your blood boil? There are surely some ways in which you, if you are white, have furthered these agendas and THAT’s your work. What racist and supremacist thoughts do you need to face and conquer? We all have them.
Does climate change and our massive cultural denial infuriate you, bring you to weeping? There are small things that you can do right now, tomorrow, and every day that lessen your impact on the earth. Regenerative action can always be begun.
I am a fine artist, and I paint and write, sculpt a little. I’ve been learning ceramics this year. I make what I make to heal my own wounds, or tell my story, or sometimes just craft a little thing for someone. And that is my work as an artist, to follow that spirit where it leads me. But the real magic of art is what happens next. When someone whose ear is caught by a line you wrote in a play changes something… When a poem shifts a perspective… when color on canvas repels… I have no control or actual relationship with any of that part, the response and reaction to what has been made. I suppose that’s what I mean about all of our small actions having great effect.
We are all called to do this small regenerative work born from the exploration of shadow, and what is wrought from it will have healing impacts, will elicit reactions and responses that we cannot even imagine.
May it be so.