I haven't written in this space in more than a week, and the last thing I wrote was just fluff, just superficial bullshit, just aggravating minor bad luck goofy stuff that's a mask, all resolved now. I'm walking around doing laundry, taking care of Sophie, exchanging texts with my favorite sacrilegious caregiver friend, feeling solidarity and shedding tears with and for another caregiver friend, Christy Shake, whose most recent post might have ripped my heart out of my body but instead provoked its beating a little harder a little faster. We are ALIVE. I love you, Christy. Who is Calvin and who is Sophie?Who are we without these cares? Must we define ourselves by care? Who are we at all?
Where is Jesus?
Shouldn't he have shown up by now and cleared the tables in Washington, D.C., kicked them over and thrown those who claim to believe in him out on their privileged, hypocritical, stupid, vision-less asses? Shouldn't that POSPOTUS be punished by now, disgraced and bound in a public stockade? Why is that man from Georgia so hell-bent on power that he's denying suffrage to tens of thousands of people? Is he afraid of the black woman that he is running against? Why are Georgians not ashamed? Are they punch (or should I say beer) drunk on power? I am ashamed that I pass countless homeless persons on every single corner of this great city. I pass them by. Why have the Koch brothers spent so much money on propaganda against climate change? What are these sacrosanct values that conservative peoples espouse? Why do so many people bear arms? The man in the park in Sedona last week, pushing his mother in a wheelchair to an overlook, the rushing water below, the sky blue above, a large gun strapped to his thigh. Did he feel safer? Freer? He made me sick. Why exactly is the POSPOTUS administration now going to "erase" transgendered people? Define humanity by their genitals at birth? Who will be next?
Will we have to fight? Parents against their grown children. Cousins estranged. Friendships severed. And anger, so much anger, and it won't be squelched.
No stranger to the catastrophizing that comes with great stress (I step over a curb and imagine my body flung by passing traffic, the descent into the red rock canyon surely must be swift), I am yet dazed, struck dumb, bewildered.
I am furious.
“I have been beaten, my skull fractured, and arrested more than forty times so that each and every person has the right to register and vote. Friends of mine gave their lives. Do your part. Get out there and vote like you’ve never voted before.”
—Congressman John Lewis
Yes. What is happening in the U.S. has happened in most developing countries around the world. Most in the majority world have always suffered this and worse. But they often have no voice to cry out. So even in the crying out and how can this be happening we do so from a place of endless privilege. Where is the fury for the rest of the world and why the shock. Most every other countries have their tyrants and galvanize and organize and often lose their lives. The privilege of being able to rant on a blog without having to risk your life is a huge privilege we are all blind to it seems.
ReplyDeleteI think Jesus is less likely to be with privileged Americans stunned by their tyrant. He is more likely to be where people have no voice and have never had one. No one seems to ask where Jesus is in Venezuela or Yemen or on and on. But wham, Amwrica gets a tyrant and all gands on deck.sigh.
DeleteSorry for typoes. Americans are always exceptionalists even in their rage against their machine. Welcome to what most people struggle with daily and really even then it is but a tiny slice.
DeleteAnonymous, I’m not blind to privilege. Nor shocked at what’s been going on, what’s happening. Nor ignorant of other countries and people’s struggles. There’s no end to suffering, nor a quantifier. I’m not sure what your comment is getting at — are your questions rhetorical? Are you asking me to recognize my own obvious privilege in ranting in this space? Have I not done so? Am I not aware of my own insignificance? I could never be enough — my privilege is huge, it runs over. What do we know of people’s lives, really — from this space? Who are you but a voice in the void, without a name nor any identifiers?
DeleteI don’t really believe in God, Anonymous, but I imagine he or she, including Jesus, is with everyone, including the president. You are right that we Americans are spoiled and petulant — but I disagree with your easy blanket statements. What sort of authority on the gradations of suffering and exceptionalism are you?
DeleteA fair question. It just seems that the Trump rage takes up all the space in the world and there is, as has always and maybe forever will be, no room for the average American to see beyond her own country to where else suffering exists. Trump this and that meanwhile Yemen is being bombed out of existence for example. And then the thousands of other places we never hear about. Would that America would take the back seat for awhile.
ReplyDeleteUm, yes. I’m not sure who you mean by an average American. That’s a trope that is tired and over-used. Some of us read and range all over the world — are quite aware of suffering as a human condition. You sound irritable. I’m sorry my dumb blog doesn’t touch on all of it — all of the world, that is. I wish! I recommend reading poetry. Even American poetry. Some Jack Gilbert, maybe. Then some Tu Fu or Li Po. Derek Walcott and Anna Akhmatova. The great Syrian writer Najat Abdul Samad. Not here, though.
DeleteAlso, this amazing blogger:https://interimarrangements.blogspot.com/2018/10/this-is-all-over-place.html#comment-form
DeleteI like your blog, your writing. I am expressing my frustration with Trump and America getting all of the attention as it were and how their is privilege in even that. Where is Jesus anywhere. The Mormons velieve Jesus came to Missouri. Probably not.
DeleteThe World as a whole it seems is in chaotic turbulence... it saddens me, where ever and everywhere it is not harmonious, not humane, not functioning in unity. Not seeing that the Human Privilege is indeed in this Beautiful Planet we all share... all of Creation is so Awe inspiring and yet Man can be blind to what Blessings the Earth has offered! We've traveled most of the World and there is so much Beauty to experience... and yet Humans seem intent to be so destructive as a Species... not just against one another, but against Creation itself.
ReplyDeleteSo now all blog posts must be about Yemen? Or Venezuela? It's just as well I stopped blogging about my own life, I missed the memo on that one.
ReplyDeleteJo, I love you like a breath of fresh air when you've been underground in a coal mine, say.
DeleteI imagine Jesus is sitting in a corner, head in hand, crying. Jesus wept, right?
ReplyDeletetRump will pass. All things pass. His anger and his rage comes out of his fear, fear that's he's not good enough, fear that nobody listens to him, fear that he will die, fear that he really is alone, fear that he is not loved and he has tapped into those fears all across the country because people would rather be angry than afraid or sad, or look at themselves.
Beautifully said, I totally agree!
DeleteAy- let me now expend my anger and frustration and fear on Anonymous- Hey Person! We can only write from our own perspective. And by the way, what's your name? Where do you live? What are you doing for those who are being bombed out of existence?
ReplyDeleteSorry. Jesus. Oh yeah, Jesus.
Oh holy imaginary savior in the clouds. Where are you? Where is your famous alleviation of suffering? For Christy Shake, for Elizabeth, for children in cages and for their parents? Are you really only with the poorest of the poor whose suffering is worthy of your magical touch?
I'm sorry, Elizabeth. I'm in a mood this morning. I feel like my heart has already burst with it all and I am weary of trying to stitch it together again and again so that it can be of use. And yet, I know that I am, without a doubt, one of the most fortunate people ever born on this earth. One of the very most absolute privileged.
Why doesn't that help?
I love you. I love all who suffer and silently stitch their hearts back together. I also love all who experience joy- why would we have been born with the ability to feel that if not to strive for it? Or even just plain old contentment.
May everyone have at least a moment of that today. A moment of fully breathing without pain of any sort.
What lily cedar wrote.
ReplyDeleteIn my heart I can also imagine that right now Jesus is a helpless infant being kept alive in Mary's loving care or that he is dying on the cross while the three Marys and his one faithful friend, John, stand vigil in agony. Regardless, Jesus needs our help. He can't save us. He can't save himself. No one can save him. I don't believe that he rose from the dead. He didn't have to. His life, including the anger which led him to upturn the tables in the temple, was enough.
It just occurred to me that John Lewis is a Baptist who is sustained by the belief that Jesus rose from the dead. John Lewis bears the name of the only friend who remained with Jesus as he died on the cross. I'm not a Christian or anything else, but I believe that John Lewis believes that Jesus rose from the dead and that Jesus still lives. I see Jesus as a teacher in the Zen tradition. One of his koans is "Who do you think I am?" Another might be, "Where do you think I am?" I don't think there is a right or wrong answer. Each one of us is free to come to our own conclusions.
Thank you for your voice, speaking out in behalf of caregivers, speaking out for Sophie's sake and for the sake of all those who can't speak. All our voices need to be heard in one way or another.
Trumpism, and right-wing nationalist movements the world over, are a manifestation of the straight white guys losing their grip on power. Other people are rising up and moving in, other races, other genders, other sexualities, and the patriarchy teaches men that those people are weaker and less deserving, so the straight white guys are enraged. That's not a news flash. But I do think it's at the root of everything. That and simple greed, which explains the likes of the Kochs.
ReplyDeleteAs for being privileged, I suspect there are a hell of a lot of people in Venezuela who ask where Jesus is every single day. I think it's privileged to assume those questions are NOT being asked there, and only in the USA, as Anonymous asserts. Yemenis may not be asking about Jesus but they're asking about Allah for sure! The fact is we all struggle and it's perfectly valid to express our individual struggles, especially on a personal blog.
(Am I mansplaining?! I hope not! :P )
DeleteNo i didn't say that. I meant it seems we only ask where god is when it comes to our American lives. Suddenly it is where is god a question that should have been asked on behalf of everywhere else in earth all along.
DeleteAnonymous, that’s just not true! I don’t know many people who aren’t informed and caring about all people’s suffering! And aware at once of their own privilege. Suffering is part of the human condition — and it’s vain to imagine otherwise.
DeleteI understand. Again i just seem to read and hear a lot about Anweicans wondering where god is now that a tyrant is in charge here. It isn't about what people write about or don't in general. Absolutely suffering exists everywhere amongst the rich and poor, across everything and everyone. But god has been missing from all places. That was my point. Why wonder where god is now. She has never been anywhere with anyone. To wonder now feels to me to be the opposite of what American evangelicals are saying but still in line with them in the sense of god here not her in America.
DeleteSteve Reed, you are NOT mansplaining. You always write so clearly, and I so value your opinion and knowledge and wisdom. Thank you for this comment, too.
DeleteAnonymous: Yes, it occurred to me after I posted that I sort of misconstrued what you said. Sorry about that. I get your point, that we're all a bit self-obsessed about our national tragedy, but I also know at least one of my blog pals wrote a post not long ago decrying the humanitarian disaster in Yemen, so there IS awareness.
DeleteElizabeth: Whew! I try to be conscientious about that. :)
Elizabeth, thank you for this post, which expresses how I am feeling to the minutest degree. I have not been able to write much on my own blog, and sometimes, I too cannot wade into making sense (there is no sense) of the miasma we are all so fucked to be in, and so I keep the view small. Sometimes I have no words for what is going on, and I am consumed by rage, disbelief, consternation, worry, and at the moment I am beside myself because I simply don't know what next to do. My heart goes out to Christy Shake, but that helps her family not at all. This bitter world. And yet, there are still shining examples of love. You, your podcast, offer them up to us. Thank you for both sides of it, for your sure grasp of the duality.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this beautiful post. I'm furious too. And willing that fury into a fierce compassion for all beings. I fear that 'our' government will open fire on the migrants walking toward our border. I fear for the homeless and the children and transgendered folk and women and yes, even the white men who are kind and resilient and part of the opposition.
ReplyDeleteReminding us of privilege (as anonymous has done) is NOT HELPFUL. We know. We know who we are. We are aware of the global suffering that is always with us. I come to this blog for fine articulate writing. And for the outrage that we so clearly feel.
I really like the writing too. I can like the writing and have ideas about god and exceptionalism and America as well. It can be hard to disagree on this blog though because people can say that is isn't helpful and defensiveness. I am frequently touched by what I read on here and I also listen to and really love the podcast and have recommended it to many (and the blog as well). I am going to read the poets and website Elizabeth suggested. My one point was - and I am saying it again in case it has been missed - that it just felt like we bring up god and where is she when bad things happen in America versus anywhere else. That rankles. and it is okay that that rankles. it is okay that maybe i didn't express it perfectly. it is okay that I am irritable.
DeleteAnonymous, of course you can and I appreciate all that you’ve said, even as I didn’t agree with some of it, thought it unclear and even off-base. And for the record — my invocation of Jesus was not literal. I’m not a believer — to me, the absence of any god that conservatives generally invoke is what is literal and clear.
DeleteI am furious too. And heartbroken. Where is do unto others as you would have them do unto you? Where is love thy neighbor as thyself? Why can the Catholic Church and other churches walk their own talk? Why can't we house the homeless? Why a million things.
ReplyDeletefeeling so much now, and for the last two years. Jesus as a metaphor for humanity, for our best selves, for justice. The never ending horror show that is our national politics (and watching Europe devolve as well). There are times when I go numb with it and mute as well. And then there is the rage. Jesus.
ReplyDelete