Photo by Chuck Reback, 2018, all rights reserved
Wednesday morning, my text messages buzzed steadily. The sentences flew back and forth in cyberspace:
“Are you ok?”
“Not good. Grieving. How are you?”
“Heartsick.”
“What are you doing to take care of yourself today?”
“Going for a walk, then curling up with a novel. You?”
“Crocheting.”
“Need anything?”
“Can’t think of anything you can do, but I’ll let you know. You?”
It was my squad of friends checking in with each other in the wake of the election. Holding each other up in the face of bleak uncertainty.
I’ve always made it a point to avoid politics in my writing for the Heyday blog. This month, I even considered not doing a newsletter. I don’t have any words of wisdom. I also know that not all my readers are on the same political page.
But I believe that compassionate people, no matter who they voted for, recognize that this is a deeply painful time in our national life. And somehow it felt dishonest and inauthentic not to talk about what is on my mind—and everyone else’s. Especially when so many people are hurting and frightened for the future. When so many people fear for their own safety and that of loved ones.
Eventually I realized the best way I could be of service might be to share some of the resources I’m turning to for comfort, hope, and wisdom in this uncertain time.
Parker J. Palmer interview by Kate Bowler on her “Everything Happens” podcast. I’ve been reading Palmer’s work for years, and in 2019, I had the great privilege of attending a weekend retreat that he led with singer/songwriter Carrie Newcomer. He’s a wise elder who has dedicated his life to helping people live in community with courage and integrity. Some of the things I found most helpful in this conversation:
· His reminder that social justice movements never succeed overnight. They are the work of generations.
· His insight that in this world of 24-hour news cycles and emotional contagion fueled by social media, it’s important to recalibrate our sense of reality we’re living in. He says, “I find that when I do that by walking out my front door, walking through the park, sitting in a playground, talking with parents and their kids, that things look better than they did in the Wisconsin State Journal or on The Daily Beast.”
· The importance of learning to live in what he calls “the tragic gap” between what is and what should be. To do this, he says, we have to learn to move forward in a world we don’t control without giving in to “corrosive cynicism” or indulging in “irrelevant idealism.”
Each Sunday morning for the past year, I’ve been reading an entry in Margaret Renkl’s beautiful, reflective The Comfort of Crows. This book is a meditation on the plants and animals that live in Renkl’s backyard and on the ever shifting rhythms of nature and of human life. In this moment, it is a reminder that time spent in the natural world can help us, even if only for a few moments, give us respite from “our private worries and the bigger worries of the world.”
For the last month or so, I’ve again been making my way through the late Irish poet and philosopher John O’Donohue’s To Bless the Space Between Us. It’s a collection of blessings for almost any occasion—the birth of a child, moving into a new home, the end of a year, the loss of a beloved. But it is much more than that with profound insights on many of life’s most pressing questions. I’m finding great comfort in savoring the final essay in the book. In it, he reflects on the nature and state of kindness. He writes, “The world can be harsh and negative, but if we remain generous and patient, kindness inevitably reveals itself.” He reminds me to practice kindness and to look for kindness wherever I go, a message I sorely need in this time.
Historian Heather Cox Richardson’s “Letters from an American.” Richardson, a historian with an amazing breadth of knowledge of American history from the founding to the present and an impressive grasp of the “big picture” of national and world events, began publishing a nightly newsletter that puts the confusing world of national politics into a larger historical context. Her work helps me understand the roots of contemporary politics, and she reassures me that this is not the first existential crisis to grip our nation.
The work of Rebecca Solnit. A gifted writer and thinker, Solnit has books on everything from the joys of walking in nature (A Field to Getting Lost) to the ways that men casually condescend to and dismiss women (Men Explain Things to Me.) I first read Solnit’s 2004 book Hope in the Dark in the very dark months after the 2016 election, and I’m about to read it again. The book reminded me (as Parker Palmer did in his conversation with Kate Bowler) that activists toil for decades to create a more positive social change. She says that we cannot always see the impact of our constructive actions, but they do have an impact. She also argues that we often make the mistake of assuming we know how current events will unfold, but that we must remember that the future is not yet written. I’m doing a very inadequate job of describing this powerful book. Solnit and her publisher, Haymarket Books, are offering a free download of the ebook this week only at this link.
Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. This is another book that I read in the wake of the 2016 election. Snyder, a historian specializing in the history of Eastern Europe, provides important lessons in how authoritarian governments come to power—and how they can be stopped. This is slim book (I think I read it in an hour- and-a-half), and an important one.
Father Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. I finished re-reading this book the day before the election. I first read it about ten years ago, but I found it far more meaningful this time around, maybe because I’m ten years older. The book has a lot to say about how suffering and challenge are normal parts of life and how spiritual maturity (no matter what your faith or spirituality looks like) is found in our attention to our inner lives. It may sound unrelated to the current national climate, but he actually provides a lot of insights about how we can better live together in integrity and community rather than division and mistrust.
Carrie Newcomer’s “A Gathering of Spirits.” My dear friend Becca introduced me to the music of Newcomer, a singer-songwriter and a wise spirit guide. Newcomer is a Quaker, and she radiates a calming spirit that I find common to the Quakers I’ve met. She and Parker Palmer co-host a monthly podcast called “The Growing Edge,” and her Substack features moving reflections and her beautiful songs. In this particular link, she shares several suggestions for finding comfort these days, and she also offers a video of one of my favorite of her songs, “You Can Do This Hard Thing.”
Elissa Altman’s “Poor Man’s Feast.” Best known as a memoirist who often writes about love and life through the lens of food, I find humor, nourishment, and hope in Altman’s searingly honest posts about moving through this world. The post I linked here is about laughter as sustenance.
Dan Rather’s “Steady.” Journalist Dan Rather is 93 years old and still helping us make sense of our national politics. He says that “steady” describes his aspiration for his Substack, a place to “facilitate conversation” about the world we live in with humor, empathy, and learning.
Courtney Martin’s “The Examined Family.” I either learned about Courtney Martin’s work from a Krista Tippett podcast or an interview with Parker J. Palmer. I can’t remember which I heard first. She’s an amazing writer, activist, and mom who writes about the challenges of raising children, caring for ailing elders, and writing as a tool for positive change. Her posts teach me and make me hopeful for the future—not in a Pollyannish way but in a way that is grounded in fierce reality.
Wow! Once I got started, this turned into a pretty long list of resources. I hope you find some of them a source of wisdom, comfort, and even inspiration as we face the long roller coaster ride ahead.
I’m finding a lot of comfort in reading fiction. I just started Kate Atkinson’s latest Jackson Brody novel Death at the Sign of the Rook. What should I read after that?
It helps to focus on moving my body with walks, yoga, and exercise. Since this November day was an unseasonably warm 80-something degrees, my husband and I scrubbed the front porch, another activity I found soothing. And now I’m going to bake a chocolate pound cake because chocolate helps everything.
I remain heartsick and grieving, but I’m focusing on the lessons of the elders including Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, John Lewis, and Jimmy Carter. I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Harriet Tubman (as quoted in historian Catherine Clinton’s biography): “If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there's shouting after you, keep going. Don't ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.”
What about you? What resources are helping you move through these days? Please share them in the comments.