Rearrangements

Yesterday morning I sat for a while under the maple trees in the Temple garden. It was a warm day and I had taken an early cup of coffee out for a stroll before meditation. I was in no hurry. Being in the middle of inner rearrangements, I was strangely free from the plot of my usual timing.

There is a lovely release that sometimes comes from being deeply disturbed. I usually live within an unconscious sense of time and obligation—a day is a certain length and I’ve got so many things to do—but when I come up against something that threatens my inner psychic arrangements, I can find myself momentarily liberated from the certainty of time. The linear connection between the things of my life loosens and I am free to wander in the garden or down the street with no purpose. In the painful breaking down the world as I know it, comes the possibility of being in some new world without compulsion.

A friend who is a writer says that a good story puts characters in situations that challenge their view of the world and force them to come to a deeper understanding of life. Isn’t this what ordinary life does for us all? We’re all participating, willing or not, in the creation and destruction of serial stories about how the world is and how we are. My story may be a self-appreciative (I’m a clever fellow and things are going pretty well) or it may be a self-sabotaging (I’m an idiot who never does anything right). Any story we repeat long enough to ourselves will do to create a provisional sense of self—the necessary ground of daily life.

While we call this mental health, our current President is an example of someone who has taken this all to its logical and pathological extreme. He seems to think if he repeats something often enough and loud enough and refuses to entertain questions about the matter, it will then become the truth. (‘My inauguration was the biggest in the history of the country.’ ‘The only reason Biden appears to have won the election is because of massive voter fraud.’) The problem with Trump is that he has convinced others to enter his reality bubble and it has turned out to be a winning (hopefully just for a short time) political strategy.

Woody Allen tells a wonderful joke in Annie Hall about a guy who goes to a psychiatrist as says, ‘I’ve got a problem. My brother thinks he’s a chicken.’ The psychiatrist says, ‘Why don’t you just tell him he’s not a chicken?’ Allen replies, ‘We need the eggs.’ — Reality is more complex and inter-twingled than we could ever imagine.

We all live in a self-created bubble of understanding of the world that intersect with an uncountable number of other bubbles. A thousand thousand different causes lead us to the views we take of the world as a safe place or a dangerous place—as a place of connection or a place of abandonment. We need these stories as roadmaps to navigate our way through the things of this world. Our stories are necessary and never completely true. I suppose real mental health is have a reasonably workable story and to being willing to continually adjust as we get more information about the world.

The adjustments are inevitably painful. What we thought was true turns out to be only partial. What we were counting on reveals itself to be more provisional than we had hoped. The certainty and solidity that we crave is always crumbling around us. Holding on tighter and trying to keep the reality of change at bay is a recipe for great suffering. But if we choose, we can begin to learn to work with these cycles of understanding and disillusionment. We can even begin to appreciate the times of transition between old certainties and new possibilities.

But back to the garden, because I wanted to write about the falling leaves. It was, as I said, a warm and pleasant morning. The leaves were already covering the ground like a layer of large yellow snowflakes – light and fluffy. As I slowly walked down the hidden brick pathway, I carefully lifted my feet to preserve their lovely obscuring of the walkways and garden landmarks.

I sat down on a chair under the maple trees and sipped my coffee while leaves fell and fell. Sometimes just one or two lazily drifted to the ground. Other times a breeze would come and scores would make their short and final trip together. Each leaf fell with its own urgency and ease. No two paths downward had the same rhythm or trajectory. Each softly fell and softly landed. I watched and listened intently from the heart of my momentary freedom.

Eventually the whisperings of duty called and I reported in for morning meditation—a little late and little rearranged by the time away and by the teachings of the falling leaves.

Unfinished Business

Out of anger I have sworn
not to miss my father.
Out of loyalty to his victims,
I refuse to remember
the date of his death
or anything but his crimes.

But I was there at the end,
before I fully knew,
and it was late January.
Was it two or three
years ago? I pretend
not to care, but the cost
of not having a father is high,
even for an old man like me.

Others speak of fond memories
and there must be many but
I can’t forgive what he did
so I refuse to receive all
he also gave—the kindness and
caring that watched over me
and made sure I was safe.

I was one of his precious little boys.
His hands were big and careful
and strong and I used to wonder
if mine would ever grow
to such generous proportions.
He gave us baths and would sing
and make things fun. Sometimes
he even let us walk on the ceiling.

If there was room for it all
I would surely miss him so.

Relief and Challenge

I am somewhat reassured to have Joe Biden, as President-elect, beginning to assume the mantle of leadership. Even as Trump holes up in the White House refusing to acknowledge defeat, Biden is, very publicly, gathering his team and setting them to work. How long will the Congressional Republicans allow Trump to pout and obstruct before they insist he acknowledge the obvious? Given their behavior over the past four years, I am not hopeful.

National Republican officials are on a high-speed train with no brakes that is headed toward an immoveable object. Their only decision is when to get off the train. With a leader who operates through fear, ridicule and bullying, it’s hard to know when it’s safe to turn away. Probably never. But I keep hoping that some of them are actually working behind the scenes to promote an orderly transition of power. We’ll see.

In the meantime, I am enjoying the spate of articles in which Biden is saying reasonable things, is talking about ‘lowering the temperature’, and is using his position as President-elect to call our country to unite to slow the spread of the corona virus. In my universe, Trump’s voice has already dramatically receded. I know he continues tweeting and carrying on, but it’s fainter—more and more obviously the disconnected ramblings of a deeply disturbed individual. And while his most vociferous followers will continue to live in the paranoid fear of all things Democratic (and democratic?), my hope is that a number of those who voted for Trump begin to trust the evidence of what Biden is saying and doing.

As the wild anxiety of the past few months begins to tentatively settle, I’m aware of the shifts in my internal universe. I know we’re not out of the woods yet, that Trump will continue to cause as much damage as he can on his way out, but we’re clearly headed in the right direction and I’m appreciating the sense of hopefulness and possibility I’m feeling. But I’m not yet ready to let my guard down.

I’ve become accustomed to a certain level of distress. These past four years and especially these past six months have created a new level of normal for my internal systems. I’m used to bracing myself every time I read the paper or listen to the news. Am I willing to allow the perpetual defensive arousal to subside somewhat? I don’t want to fall back into assuming that someone else will do the job of resistance of injustice and the hard work of social change, but I want to lower the temperature of my internal operating system.

Even with a new President and a government that values reason and collaboration, we are still facing dire issues. Virus rates are rising in almost every state in the country and the coming winter may make it even worse. Police reforms have stalled everywhere as the depth of resistance and the complexity of the problem of systemic racism have become more evident. Many people are suffering economically from the pandemic induced recession and our ‘American’ way of life continues to be based on a level on environmental destruction that has catastrophic implications for this planet and ourselves.

We should all breathe a sigh of relief and appreciate the magnitude of Biden’s victory of decency and truthfulness (not to mention science)—and then begin to pivot to creating sustainable lives of ongoing engagement in this precious and fragile world.

Three Wanderers

Through the golden garden,
the old woman trails easily after
the flaxen-haired toddler—
content to let him find his own way.

Oblivious of her careful efforts,
the smaller wanderer quietly gathers
the detritus of dead leaves, sticks
and stones as casual treasure
offered to his appreciative protector
while she promises the watchful gardener
to replace all his disturbed stones
to their original duty.

The little collector has not
yet learned the desperate
importance of the way things are
and is free to plunder—
borrowing and rearranging
garden borders without malice.

Warm sun shines softly out
of the deep blue afternoon
into the yellow leaves.
They fall singly and in pairs,
silently dancing earthward
from unseen branches high above.

The platinum-headed boy
cares nothing for the gold.
He clutches a dry brown leaf
in equal wonder to the
freshly fallen yellow treasures.

The gardener and the old
woman know the difference
but still smile in wonder of
the gifts and losses of autumn.

Biden Elected!

The thirtieth time I checked my phone yesterday morning, I received the news I was all but certain would come: Pennsylvania was called for Joe Biden, putting him over the 270 vote threshold in the Electoral College necessary to become the next President of the United States! I quickly went upstairs to tell my wife, my daughter and my grandson. We were all delighted and relieved, though my grandson (19 months) appeared to be more interested in his wooden trains than in the Electoral College math of it all.

We talked and read more about it, texting friends and calling my ninety-one year old mother who lives just a little north of Philadelphia. Over the past four years she has been nearly disturbed by Trump and his predations as I have been. I thanked her for delivering Pennsylvania to the Democrats. She was happy to celebrate together and, as usual, deflected the credit.

Melissa and I ‘stayed up’ to watch Biden’s victory speech from Wilmington, Delaware last night. We rarely watch live news on TV – we get our information from the New York Times, the Boston Globe, National Public Radio, the New Yorker and the Atlantic. I mention these media outlets as the media we consume seem increasingly relevant and determinative to our view of the world.

Seeing Kamala Harris take the stage was a moment of real joy. We were delighted to see the first woman, the first Black woman and the first Southeast Asian to be elected to the office of Vice President of the United States. In the midst of our growing awareness of the violence and racism that are woven into the imperfect fabric of our country, this was a clear demonstration of our ‘better angels’—the fruit of hundreds of years of struggle for and progress toward equality and justice.

Harris was strong, clear and inspiring. Her message was one of possibility and hope. Her presence on the stage, before Joe Biden in his big moment, was a huge signal of his respect for her, his awareness of the historic significance of the moment and, hopefully, how he intends to govern by inviting others to work with him. Harris was so impressive that, while watching her, I began to have concerns for Joe Biden coming next.

But Biden did not disappoint. He was energetic, sincere and laid out a vision of healing and possibility. He acknowledged the magnitude of the work ahead with bringing the pandemic under control and ending this polarization that has paralyzed our country. He was folksy, direct and hopeful:

‘Let’s give each other a chance. It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric.
To lower the temperature. To see each other again. To listen to each other again.  To make progress, we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy. We are not enemies. We are Americans.’

Last night, Biden represented the best of what it means to be a politician. He clearly loved being up on the stage, loved the idea of serving his country and expressed a desire to lead everyone, not just his partisan base. He was inclusive, hopeful and eager to take on ‘The battle to restore decency, defend democracy, and give everybody in this country a fair shot.’ With his lifetime of political experience, his natural inclination toward collaboration and his irrepressible enthusiasm, he seems uniquely suited for an utterly impossible job.

I watched for a while after the speeches to appreciate the fireworks and to listen to the PBS analysts and prognosticators share perspectives on what this moment might mean for our beleaguered country. Several things struck me.

Biden’s margin of victory was not ‘razor-thin’ as it had felt when everything seemed to hang in the balance, but rather typical for these days of partisan politics. And while he did receive more votes than any Presidential candidate in the history of American politics, the person who received the second most votes ever was his rival, Donald Trump.

Almost all the pundits talked about our current polarization as one of the biggest challenges facing the new administration—the one they will have to work with in order to make progress on the pandemic, the economy, the environment, and the many promises of working to end systemic racism.

Also reported was a bit of information from an exit survey of voters as they left the polls. 90% of Biden voters believed that if Trump was elected there would be serious negative consequences for the country. AND 89% of Trump voters believed that if Biden was elected there would be serious negative consequences for the country. If we assume that the relative ‘optimism’ of Trump supporters is within the range of polling error ;-), we’re left with a country in which we have lost all faith in the opposition. The parties now represent not different political choices, but the moral forces of good and evil. This makes collaboration a little more difficult.

Joe Biden spoke directly to this in his remarks when he said: ‘Let this grim era of demonization in America begin to end — here and now.’ As I examine my own feelings toward Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, to mention just a few, I realize this will be hard work.

This morning, I am relieved, happy and only slightly apprehensive. It’s been a long month of tension, fears and hopes. This is a moment to rejoice in the regular functioning of our democracy and in the election of a decent and honest man into the office of the President. There are many weeks till it’s all official and enormous challenges ahead. We must remain watchful and engaged.