My heart is heavy.
I am a practical person. Like so many of us here, I'm an American with no axe to grind. I just feel I have a stake in what's happening, and all of a sudden it's not enough just to cast my vote. Who knows if it's anything at all to cast my vote anymore. I'm new to paying close attention to the news of the day. The news of the day, my friends, is not good. We all know this.
My great-grandparents came to this country from Germany in the late 1920s. My mother liked to say that her grandfather may have been an impractical man in many respects, but he understood when the political winds were blowing in a dangerous direction. He uprooted his young family and started over, here in the U.S., because he could see that Germany was going no place that he wanted to be. Where are we headed? I'm not ready to really believe we could headed for real terror, not just the version our President would like us to believe we're already living. (Make no mistake, we have wrought terror on this world, but we have yet to live it in full force like our brothers and sisters in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and Palestine, among others.)
My usual steadfastness as the practical, reasonable one feels shaky these days. War, lies, torture, racism, and the rise of a frightening brand of Christianity that wishes to brand itself the national flavor--I feel like we're on a dangerous road, and I can't decide if it's enough to get out the vote in my neighborhood, or if it really is time to Shut It Down, as some have suggested. I can't tell anymore what is reasonable or sane. It frightens me deeply. I have a child. It scares the shit out of me, really.
There has to be a way to find some peace and some slim line of hope to lead us out.
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
Pascal
The first thing upon which we should meditate
Is our precious and fleeting human life,
Hard to obtain, and easy to destroy;
I will now give it meaning.
Kalu Rinpoche
The true essence of humankind is kindness. There are other qulaities which come from education or knowledge, but it is essential, if one wishes to be a genuine human being and impart satisfying meaning to one's existence, to have a good heart.
The 14th Dalai Lama
When we feel responsible, concerned and committed, we begin to feel deep emotion and great courage.
The 14th Dalai Lama
How do we carry ourselves through this particular valley? I hope to do it without forgetting that my parents taught me kindness, and to do my homework. I'll read all I can, know all I can (even when it sickens and saddens me, which it does more often than not lately), and tell people that we all need to pay attention. But I must remember kindness. Anger, aggression, violence: of these there are plenty without my piling on.
What do I do with my despair? I suppose that is my question, in writing this diary. I want to find a place to stand where I can say, Here and no further, and do it with courage and kindness in my heart.
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
Emily Dickinson