17 Perspectives on Downsizing

The quality of our lives is not so much determined by the actual events themselves, but by the stories we tell ourselves—the meaning we make of what we encounter.

The perspectives/stories on downsizing below are mutually contradictory and all true.

If you happen to be engaged in the process of downsizing (as I am), you might read through the list below to see which viewpoint (or some other one) is most familiar to you. Be aware of what your ‘default’ story is and how well (or not) it has served you. Just knowing the perspective we are in can be helpful in creating more options moving forward.

If you want to create more flexibility and perhaps even more fun in your downsizing efforts, you might see if there are perspectives below (or ones you can make up) that are also true for you and that might be useful as you go through the sometimes necessary joys and sorrows of downsizing. If so, see if you can consciously touch the truth of this other position that may not be the most natural to you. What is it like to ‘step into’ this perspective? What would it be like to do some part of your downsizing work from this position?

17 Perspectives on Downsizing

1) My Wonderful Things — We collect treasures that remind us of experiences, places and people we love. These objects are a precious and wonderful part of our lives—every little stone and shell is unique and life-giving.

2) Lightening My Load — The things we have require both physical and mental space. They can weigh us down, clutter our lives and leave us little space to breathe. They were nice once, but if my whole house burned down, how many of my things would I even remember to miss?

3) Prepared For Contingencies –- You never know what is going to happen. If you let go of that pair of old pants, what will you wear next time you decide to paint the porch? Hold onto as much as you can to be prepared for what lies ahead.

4) Practicing Dying –- Eventually, everything you have will be taken away. Though you may imagine this as a fearful event, human beings have also reported being quite excited about the prospect of leaving the suffering and burdens of this ‘mortal coil’. Many religions also preach that a certain kind of dying before we actually die is a necessary step toward a life of freedom and meaning.

5) Hard Thing to Do –- The decision-making process of looking at each item you own and deciding whether there is room for that in the new place is exhausting. It brings up memories of the past and concerns about the future. There’s no way to do it but to buckle down, grit your teeth and plow through.

6) Nothing Really Belongs to Me Anyway – everything you have has been given to you. Even the things you bought with your own money or made with your own hands were given to you through the generosity of the universe that gave you the skills to earn the money or the talent to create. The stuff of your things comes from the world around you that can neither be owned or not-owned. It was here before you ever showed up and will be here long after you disappear.

7) Yes, No and Maybe –- Some stuff is clearly useless and some is clearly necessary, but a huge amount of your stuff probably fits into the ‘maybe’ category. Do Yes and No first and see how much room there is for maybe.

8) Full Moon –- The moon would not be the moon without both the waxing and waning. So it is with our lives. Sometimes we accumulate, sometimes we diminish. Complaining about the waning moon is certainly possible, but is not likely to lead to an improved quality of life. Happiness only comes from appreciating whatever phase we happen to find ourselves in.

9) Quality of Life –- What if the end result is not as important as the place you are right now? If you want to live a life of compassion and acceptance, there is no other time to live this life than right now. Can you appreciate the challenge of letting go of so much and allow yourself to feel all the emotions that arise? Sadness for what is over, resentment that this is necessary, excitement for what is to come and a thousand other emotions as well.

10) Bird Song –- The birds carry very little with them from season to season, from nest to nest, yet they sing fully every morning and make no complaint against whatever weather arises.

11) Trailer Truck –- It honks as it rushes by in the early morning. It’s filled with stuff going somewhere. All the stuff that we have is simply a distraction from the real thing of life, which is relationship – to ourselves, to others and to the world around us. Imagine loading everything you own into a trailer truck and taking it all away for someone else to have to deal with.

12) Sparks Joy –- Thank you Marie Kondo for reminding us of our visceral connection to the things we own. But the unspoken secret to the effectiveness of her method is the assembling thing of a category (clothes, books, kitchen stuff) in a large pile before you touch each thing and choose to keep only the items that ‘spark joy.’ Without the pile, we lose the perspective of the whole and make decisions without realizing the vital connection of one thing to another and everything to the greater whole.

13) Plaid Shirt –- Though fancy clothes and things are nice, the basic stuff, like a plaid shirt and pair of jeans, does just fine for most of life. A small selection allows more freedom to live your life than a large selection – less time deciding and less time focused on the surface of things to allow more time for what truly matters.

14) Just the Right Shirt –- To wear clothes that delight us is a way of expressing ourselves and living a good life. Having choices allows us the joy of each morning finding just the right clothes for the season, for our mood and for the occasion of that day.

15) Passing It On –- Even in this country of abundance, there is real need—families and individuals who have few resources. Giving away some of what you have to organizations that sort and make it available for others is a way of passing on the abundance of your life.

16) A Little Help From My Friends –- My mother used to come in my room and help me clean up by just being there and keeping me company. It’s easy to get lost and overwhelmed in the process of sorting, selecting and packing. Ask a friend to come over and help.

17) No Mistakes –- So far, in this life, you have had all that you need to get by. Whatever you decide to keep or let go of will be just the right thing—no need to worry about the ‘right decision’. Keep what you keep, pass on what you pass on and praise God through it all.

Ongoing Invitation

Linear time is
highly overrated.

The thin and unforgiving
line that stretches
endlessly ahead and
behind is merely
a figment or your
imagination. You
do not live in some
small dot between
before and after.

The essential panic
of looming dead lines
and to-do lists that
drives our lives
to incessant action
is fool’s gold that only
seduces and enslaves.

As if any of us could
ever get it all done
soon enough or
well enough or
completely enough
to satisfy that ancient
fear that flutters
inside the human heart.

Darwin lured us
down the wrong path.

It’s not a fierce fight
for survival but rather
an ongoing invitation
to all that is just now
coming into being—
an unruly accumulation
that collects and blossoms
again and again amidst
the vast abundance
of what is already here.

Moonrise and Moonset

Through the windows of the disorganized living room, the full and pale moon hangs above the dark trees this morning. The moon is silent in its imperceptible slide toward the horizon while invisible traffic growls a faint continuo that reminds me of the ongoing rush of accomplishment and accumulation.

Having heard an inspiring talk on the Zen full-moon ceremony of repentance and renewal in the morning, my mother, my step-father, two sisters and I did our best to watch the moon’s rising last night. My weather app told me that 8:50 was the appointed time but, not being familiar with the local geography, I had a harder time calculating where exactly we could best view its rise.

Full moons rising over the horizon are astonishing events. The moon looms large as she launches herself skyward yet shrinks even within minutes as she climbs in the evening sky. But yesterday (actually the day before) was a ‘pink’ moon, the spring ‘supermoon which is 7% brighter and 15% larger than normal. We hoped to witness this for ourselves.

It wasn’t an uncomplicated adventure. We had spent the day helping my mom and step-dad move from their independent living unit to an assisted care unit in the retirement home where they have happily resided for over a decade. Their new two-room suite is still only partially decorated and their old place, where my sisters and I spent the night, is filled with no-longer-needed furniture, books and various objects of beauty and memory. But yesterday was ‘check-in day’ for their new life, so my sisters and I journeyed from our respective homes far away to support this poignant and developmentally appropriate transition.

The maintenance crew had already moved the big stuff that could fit from the old place to the new but, on our journey to ‘check-in’, we were left wheeling a cart through the quarter-mile of halls to their new destination. The cart was piled high with a small bookcase, several containers holding various medicines and objects of value (wonderfully including one container of smooth and lovely stones), a suitcase full of clothes and the cart-load was topped precariously and vigilantly by a two-foot-high cactus. Though all agree on the wisdom of this transition, the actuality of the walk together and some sense of the finality of these new temporary arrangements were with me as I guided the cart that my step-father, without quite knowing where he was going, was pushing.

The staff and the residents of the new place were most solicitous and welcoming. Friends and a few residents stopped by with big smiles and messages of support. Everyone knows this is a difficult moment. Stepping into what is next, we must leave behind the familiar comforts of our known world and step anew into what is to come. We might say that this happens in every moment of our lives as what we know becomes the past and we step again into that which is to come. But there are sometimes moments in our lives where the reality of the necessary leaving behind and unavoidable beginning of the unknown are vivid and filled with emotion.

As per Pennsylvania state regulations both my mother and step-father, upon arrival were fitted with ‘wander-guards’—ankle or wrist devices the size of a large watch— explained and affixed apologetically and gently. ‘For the first three days, then we’ll evaluate.’ No one objected but everyone except my step-father appeared slightly uncomfortable with the new arrangement.

For our moon viewing, we let the aide know we were going outside, then headed for the elevator. Just as we were about to step on, a loud alarm rang—the tracking devices were working—which, I suppose, is a good thing. No one came rushing or even seemed to notice (which seemed to be both a good thing and a troubling thing) but we headed back to the nurse’s station to get the further necessary permissions to allow us to breach the confines of their new accommodations.

We eventually got outside into the lovely warm evening dark. My step-father and I waited on a nearby bench as my mom and my sisters took off around the corner of the building to where we supposed the best view to be. They returned twenty minutes later, talking companionably but having seen no moonrise, pink or otherwise.

I maintained my assertion of the accuracy of my reported rising time, so we wondered about our choice of viewing directions and suspected trees or clouds as the culprits in our non-event. After calling for assistance to open the locked front door and walking and shuffling slowly back to their place at the end of the hall on the second floor, we did see the moon hazily and rather unspectacularly rising from a cloudbank through a window at the end of their hall.

The three kids hugged and kissed their parents goodnight, professing our true love—truly grateful for vaccines and the privilege to be with them in this transition. They headed toward their separate beds in their still antiseptic-looking bedroom while my sisters and I returned to the half-emptied apartment that had been theirs.

This morning, I woke up in an unfamiliar room and wondered if I might see this fabled moon at least in her setting. Wandering through the dark and partially unconstructed room to the window, I found it waiting obligingly just over the trees outside my window.

Miraculous and ordinary, poignant and practical—love and loneliness intertwinkle to fill all our days.

Disclaimer

Several friends have pointed out that sometimes I say ‘always’ or ‘everyone’ does this or that, or feels this or that, or that this or that will happen to ‘us all.’ They caution me against over-reach. Who am I to know about every one? Isn’t every life experience unique and aren’t I closing out possibility and speaking out of turn when I use these words? In considering their objections, I realize that I use these universal locutions to be inclusive. My intention is to write about life itself rather than my life in particular.

My main vantage point on life itself is my own experience, which in some mysterious way is both utterly connected to all the rest of you human beings and is also completely unique. I have come to trust that what arises in me is not just particular to me, but is me experiencing what human life really is in these particular circumstances. I trust my associative mind and notice what memories and thoughts and even physical sensations arise as I follow the thread of what is arising.

I also gather information from friends, families, students and coaching clients. I am fascinated by how each person I encounter has found a way to make it all work for them. Each person, as Jon Kabat-Zinn says, is a genius. I trust that everyone I encounter embodies both the particular wisdom of their own life as well as the full wisdom of being alive. One teacher referred to this as ‘the wondrous functioning.’ We all know perfectly well how to be ourselves and how to be in the particular situation we are in. The moment may be easy or it may be difficult, but it is always exactly what it is. (So there it is, ‘always’, appearing again.)

The Buddha taught that there are four marks of existence. (And even this is suspect – his teachings were not written down until hundreds of years after his death, so whose teachings are they really? Some say he taught only three marks of existence and some translate and understand these teachings in different ways than I do. So maybe they are simply my four, not the Buddha’s four.) The teaching, whomever it belongs to, is that change, discomfort, the lack of a fixed self, and awakening are common to all human beings. (Ruth King, in her book RACE MATTERS, wonderfully translates/interprets the first three as: nothing is permanent, perfect, or personal.)

But what I am trying to get at is that I do want to talk about and draw you, my reader, into the essence of life. I do want to get to the core of it all so that we can more deeply appreciate and work with this amazing gift we have each been given. In the service of this, I sometimes make blanket statements that may or may not be true. In fact, even the non-blanket statements I make may or may not be true.

This is where you, the reader, must continue to do your part. In spite of my best attempts at directness and honesty, I remain incorrigibly partial and self-deluded. I continue to miss the mark, both in my life and in my writing. I am engaged in the ongoing process of coming to terms with and even appreciating my blindness and forgetfulness as part of the whole dance of life.

I sincerely hope that sometimes I write or point to some truth that touches your own deep knowing as you read. This is what I aim for, to spark the resonance of your own wisdom. I am also sure that sometimes what I present with conviction and sincerity will not be true, meaningful or useful for you. Both are fine conditions, though I must admit my preference for the former.

So may ‘we all’ filter the teachings we encounter through the lens of our own experience. What confuses or disturbs us is not necessarily false, but our ultimate guide has to be our own deep heart’s wisdom. We ‘all’ already have the wisdom we are looking for.

Guilt and Innocence

The light comes slowly into the dark. I lie in bed befuddled by another night of dreaming and wonder at the slow pace of its seeping into the room. A swirl of images and oppressive feelings surges within me.

One day, several years ago when I couldn’t find my words, I was told to go immediately to the hospital. They took me in without waiting and then had me wait with nothing to do while they tested my brain and heart. Eventually, everything was ascertained to be in fine fettle, but not until I spent the night in the surge unit—an all-purpose room with many beds and thin curtains separating the ailing inhabitants—and made a midnight run to the MRI machine where the attendant banged hammers against the machine my head was in while he drew detailed images of my brain.

This morning, the words are still here, though I haven’t tried to speak out loud yet. The odd thing about my ten minutes of aphasia then was that I still had all the words inside me, it’s just when I tried to speak them, they came out jumbled. I was aware of their disarrangement and slowly said to the person I was talking to: ‘I’m not making any sense, am I?’ He agreed, we called Melissa who was out doing errands (remember the old days?), she called the doctor and the rest proceeded as it did.

All of this is here now, somehow included in my night of dreams where I was waking up to not having lived up to my responsibilities. I dream this over and over. Usually, I’m at college and it’s toward the end of the semester, the paper is due, the exam is coming up and I haven’t been going to class at all or doing any of the work and I’m about to be found out. Sometimes I realize that I never got a course catalog at the beginning of the semester (perhaps the best part of college – the looking through the course catalog before the semester starts and dreaming of all the wonderful courses I might take) and have been enrolled in courses of which I am not even aware.

Last night I was living in a commune of sorts, where we were all supposed to do our share and I had been so busy that when I showed up in the kitchen, vowing to myself to start pitching in, that the others stopped what they were doing and gave me a lecture about how in group settings it’s always just a few who do most of the work. I sheepishly agreed and did my best not to make excuses.

I suppose someday I must learn to confess my guilt and protest my innocence more vehemently. It’s true, I haven’t held up my end of the bargain. I haven’t been the person I aspire to be. Again and again I have fallen short—disappointing myself and others. And it’s also true that no mistakes have been made. I have always done my best and even when that has not been very much, it has still been the best I could have done in that circumstance.

The universe I give back to the universe. I am tired of my self-proclaimed job as ruler and cede my misguided attempts at control. I vow once again to show up, to pay attention, to do what I can where I am, and to leave the outcome up to the source of life that sustains and receives us all.

Sitting With Good Friends

Yesterday was a gorgeous day for sitting in the Temple garden with good friends. The Buddha said the good friends along the way are the essence of the journey. So, as good friends, a small part of our Boundless Way Zen community sat together in meditation in a still-socially distanced circle to express our love and wonder at being alive. We enjoyed the sounds of the waterfall and the wind in the trees mingled with the traffic and sirens and even the racket of a lawn being mowed on the other side of the fence. All together altogether.

The maples that sheltered us with their nascent leaves participated by dropping the blessing of their small green flowers and a squirrel stopped his urgent busyness to sit momentarily still as well. All of us—two-legged seated creatures, green rooted creatures—squirrels, bunnies, worms, and microbes—all living and breathing together. All of us expressing the fullness of life in being and doing exactly who we are.

It was a delight to be in each other’s company, but also weird. I’m not used to the proximity of other humans yet. We kept our distance though we wore masks and the majority of us, I think, have already been vaccinated. An abundance of caution mixed with the urge to be close. We smiled and talked—wandered in the garden—marveled at the daffodils and tulips, the three resident koi and many helped carry the small mountain of branches from a year’s worth of storms from the far back to up near the front parking lot for the wood chipper that will come at some unspecified time.

By the end of two sessions of sitting, walking and a little (masked) chanting, I was exhausted and happy to return to the unsocial bubble of my home with just my partner. We watched some TV, I went back into the now-quiet garden and enjoyed the reverberations of an afternoon with good friends on the way.

Too Much

Saturday morning—leading a Zen koan workshop in Belgium this morning, then gathering with our community for Zen meditation in the afternoon. Meanwhile (which is quickly becoming my favorite word) my two hopefully planted sweet pea seedlings have survived our recent slightly sub-freezing temperatures and arctic winds in the garden and their compatriots of all green shades and shapes are growing lush under the constructed circadian rhythms of the grow-lights in the predictable warmth of the empty meditation hall.

I love to live at the edge. Edges are said to be the most diverse and interesting parts of any ecosystem. The region in between the forest and the meadow—between the land and the sea—between too many and just enough seedlings. Fascinating things happen at the edges. Studying these in-between regions we can begin to realize that clear edges are much more a linguistic construction than a property of the world.

Language is about the boundary between this and that. Life is about everything all together. Many of us have been encouraged to have clear boundaries. Yes means yes and no means no. I am here and you are there. But it turns out that language functions better when we remember it is simply a temporary expedient, not the thing itself. I am certainly not you, but, dear reader, as you read this, part of me is becoming part of you. Your eyes scan these black squiggles on your screen and form words and sentences and images in your mind. Whatever happens in your mind is clearly you, isn’t it? But some vague idea that comes into my mind from whatever its source and finds its way into this morning’s wandering exploration of life has now found its way into the dark mass of electrical processing we call ‘your’ brain.

Not only that, but I think I have once again been overly enthusiastic in the number of seedlings I have begun. Zinnias tend to be my downfall. The first flower seeds planted in my early spring indoor growing season are usually the tiny ones that take a week or two to germinate. They then emerge as the frailest green threads holding aloft little flakes of green leaves. They grow quite slowly, and only after six or seven weeks gain enough heft to be transplanted.

Zinnias, on the other hand, are large (comparatively) flakes of seed that sprout in a few days as vigorous actors that push the growing medium willy-nilly aside to proclaim their lofty aspirations. This year’s crop of Benary Giants and Cupid Mix has not disappointed. In less than three weeks they have filled in the growing trays and now need to be transplanted into larger pots. So today or early tomorrow morning, I’ll transplant them. But then will I have room under the grow lights? And now it will be a race between the weather and their growth. Too long under the grow lights, even with adequate sized pots and they will get too leggy or tall to transplant successfully into the garden. The guaranteed last frost date around here is the end of May, but it’s usually safe by May 20, but not always…

So, I have once again successfully allowed my enthusiasm to take me to the edge of what is possible. Will the timing work out? Have I planted too many to be able to keep them all going while the weather is still unsettled? Meanwhile, who will be able to care for my emerald menagerie while I take a six-day trip to see my mother for the first time in 18 months and help her move from her independent living apartment to the support of the medical wing of her retirement community where she can receive more support for the daily necessities of her life and for her care of my step-father who often needs attention?

We’re always in the middle of so much—always in transition with ourselves, with those we love and with whatever wild projects and plans we undertake. It’s really all too much, but also kind of exciting.

Reading Well

I pretty much have to wear my glasses now when I want to read. I can still make the print big enough on my kindle and computer to escape my fate, but the print in the paperback and hardcover books I love is slipping away from me. If I squint and concentrate I can still do it, but it’s not an easeful activity and I’m starting to resign myself to picking up my glasses more often.

I’ve always had an ambivalent relationship with reading. In fourth and fifth grade, I was one of those boys who dreaded when it was my turn to read out loud to my peers. It seemed like a test with no upside—if you read well that was expected and they just went on to the next person, but if you mixed up your words or couldn’t sound one out, everyone knew how clumsy and stupid you really were.

But I loved the adventure stories of Beau Geste, Ivanhoe and others that my father read to me and my brother. We also delighted in going to the library with my mother and returning with as many books as we were allowed. I was thrilled by getting to choose my own books from amongst the many wondrous topics and illustrations. I loved the heft and feel of my own private stack of books which I carefully kept on my lap on the car ride home—obediently not reading until we got home because reading in the car is bad for your eyes.

But reading myself was never as much fun when the pictures diminished and I had to do it alone. That was until I discovered the ‘We Were There’ series, a collection of first person re-imaginations of significant events in American history. I think it was ‘We Were There at the Alamo’ that first hooked me.

From my father, and from some natural and culturally encouraged tendency toward romance and righteous questing, I loved adventure stories. The hero is always set to right some obvious wrong against impossible odds. Through his many trials, he never waivers. His courage and strength are steadfast and he ultimately prevails and is recognized as the true hero he has always been.

At eight years old, I was mesmerized by the lush, violent and romantic movie ‘The Alamo’ which my Dad too me and my brother to see. John Wayne directed it and played my name sake, Davy Crockett. The women and children are spared, but the men carry out their duty of honor and die for freedom and love. At sixty-eight, I’m now rather critical of this one-sided vision of imperialism and misguided violence masquerading as manhood, but to and as and eight year old, with my father’s support, this seemed like a good and true vision of how to be a man.

So I remember taking out ‘We Were There at the Alamo’ from the school library on Friday, coming home from school and sitting in one chair for two or three hours and reading the whole thing. I was swept away. When I tearfully looked up at the heroic and tragic conclusion, I didn’t know where I was. It was a wonderful feeling, but it was balanced by feeling so physically awful and even nauseous from having sat in the same position concentrating on the small type for so long. From then on, I tried not to read so long at one time, but I was hooked on the possibilities.

I always read numerous books at a time now. One that is especially delighting me these days is Wallace Stegner’s classic BEYOND THE HUNDREDTH MERIDIAN: JOHN WESLEY POWELL AND THE SECOND OPENING OF THE WEST. My paperback copy has small print so I always put on my glasses when I dive it to marvel at the vastness of the west and the eternal battle of romance and realism, between principled courage and self-promotion—all filtered through Stegner’s luminous prose, prodigious knowledge and inspiring insight into human nature.

Even in the full flood of springtime, it’s worth putting on my classes and sitting in a chair for—at least for a little while.

Overnight With Family

Everyone else is asleep and the sun has just risen over the northeastern horizon. A few clouds gently flow southward, above the main event. I myself sit on a half-couch by the second-floor windows looking east.

I slept well but was troubled by meeting someone who seemed quite nice, but later I discovered he had been an adherent of the psychotherapy/cult my father had espoused. He was nearly my age but had a young girlfriend who was eager to make my acquaintance. I was tempted but then things got fuzzy and for the rest of the dream I didn’t know if something had happened or not. If it had, I was sure I had ruined my life and would live in fear and shame forever. Every once in a while I would gratefully realize I was dreaming, but most of the time I was fully enveloped in dreaming of dreaming and waking.

Yesterday afternoon it was in the high 60’s. This morning it’s below freezing. I wonder about the two sweet pea seedlings I planted in the garden. I knew it was too early, but they were growing so fast—sending roots down through the bottom of the peat pot and climbing toward the grow-lights—and I read in an article in the Irish Times that they can tolerate a light frost so…we’ll see.

Spring is like this. While the overall trend toward warmth is assured, variation within the clear direction is to be expected. Most everything is like this. Nothing is just one thing. My father died years ago and still he shadows my dreams. Things that have happened in my life are the ground I sprouted from—those things and my stories and reactions then and now to those things have made and are continually making me who I am. And the things that haven’t happened to me, unfulfilled plans and dreams—things I have read about or seen images of—all these things are part of me too.

Life does not unfold evenly toward maturity and wisdom but seems rather to bounce around—zigzagging back and forth within as many dimensions as we can imagine. Foolishness and delusion mix endlessly with their opposites just as stories of the past mix with the hopes and fears of the future to create the present dream of now.

Yet the sun rises this morning slightly further to the north from where it did yesterday. Several months ago, in the midst of winter, from this vantage point, it rose over an entirely different neighborhood. I suppose this is relatively invariable, the seasonal trek of the rising sun from the northeast in the winter to exactly east on the spring solstice to the southeast in summer and then back again.

Meanwhile, we dream our dreams and call them our lives. We do our best to wake up and make something of ourselves. We are told the long arc of history bends toward justice but many of us wonder how to add the weight of our lives to this hopeful but uncertain proposition how to spend ourselves wisely.

Back home, my sweet pea shoots may or may not have survived the overnight cold. Being naturally cautious, I only planted two of the seven that sprouted in the warmth of the grow-lights. So I continue to dream of fragrant and delicate blossoms climbing the wooden wall and keep my options open.

Guilty

I just happened to be driving in the car a little after five o’clock yesterday afternoon. I turned on the radio just in time to hear the announcer say that they were going to be cutting away to a live feed of the judge reading the verdict in the George Floyd trial. I, like many, had been afraid that the jury would be deadlocked, or worse, that they would do what so many previous juries in America have done: let white men and women avoid punishment and accountability for their acts of violence against people with black and brown skin.

I was surprised that the verdict came so quickly and suspected that meant there was a good chance that they were going to find for the prosecution. I had just reached my destination, the parking lot of the Temple, when the judge read the verdict that Derek Chauvin was found guilty on all three counts. I was relieved and saddened. Relieved that the jury had agreed with the seemingly incontrovertible evidence of the ten minutes of video. Relieved that, at last, our criminal justice system has held a police officer accountable for the use of excessive force. And relieved that the pent-up rage at centuries of white brutality and intimidation would not erupt in our cities across the country as it would have if Chauvin had been acquitted.

I was also saddened. Saddened that this event happened—that innumerable causes and conditions led Chauvin and his accomplices to view their brutal actions as justified and acceptable, that many of us find ourselves relieved and even amazed that simple justice was served, and that a man lost his life and another man’s life was destroyed by his own actions.

The ongoing nature and scope of our human brutality one to another is nearly incomprehensible. We organize ourselves into families and tribes and nations and then find reasons to dislike, hate and kill each other—and do it with an attitude of righteous necessity. Many years ago, in the middle of one of America’s small wars of aggressive self-protection, a man I know was banned from the St. Patrick’s Day parade because he wanted to carry a sign that said: ‘Do not kill means do not kill.’ Jesus and the ten commandments are not equivocal on this point, yet so many have been killed in the name of Christianity—and in the name of just about every other cause, religion and government I can think of.

As usual, our current President responded immediately, empathetically and put this event into the larger frame of our country’s ongoing struggle to live up to the high ideals of our founders (who also found it impossible to live up to their lofty words.) The NYTimes captured Biden’s remarks this way:

President Biden praised the verdict in a nationwide address at the White House but called it a “too rare” step to deliver “basic accountability” for Black Americans.

“It was a murder in full light of day, and it ripped the blinders off for the whole world to see,” Mr. Biden said. “For so many, it feels like it took all of that for the judicial system to deliver just basic accountability.”

Biden went on to say:

The battle for the soul of this nation has been a constant push and pull for more than 240 years — a tug of war between the American ideal that we’re all created equal and the harsh reality that racism has long torn us apart.

At our best, the American ideal wins out.  So we can’t leave this moment or look away, thinking our work is done.  We have to look at it — we have to — we have to look at it as we did for those 9 minutes and 29 seconds.  We have to listen.  “I can’t breathe.  I can’t breathe.”  Those were George Floyd’s last words.  We can’t let those words die with him.  We have to keep hearing those words.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. President, for calling us again to join in the ongoing work of our nation. The momentum of institutional racism, misogyny and economic oppression is strong and it is only through our everyday thoughts, words and actions that this country will continue to move toward the land we aspire to be—a land of justice, freedom and dignity for all.