I get letters every day from people saying they are frightened by the new and angry politics enveloping the country, and worried about the future. Many say they are sickened by the cruelty and viciousness that seem a hallmark of our search for a leader.

“For the first time in my life,” wrote Marcia, “I am really worried about my country.”

It is a challenge, for me also, and I am working to find my center, my safe place, my way of grasping what is happening without surrendering to it or being enveloped by it. But I am getting there. Challenge is good for learning, if your eyes and heart stay open. If you are curious as to how I do it, here is how:

– I do not attach labels to myself or permit others to label me. I do not belong to the “left” or the “right,” my ideas and values cross those lines, as do those of many people. Labels are the opposite of thought and learning, they kill both. They spawn anger and hatred, not reason. I reject them and avoid people who carry them in their consciousness, and define themselves in so narrow and demeaning a way.

– My life is not an argument. I do not discuss my politics on social media or with people I do not know and trust.

I do not object to people who disagree with me, or despise them for it. I do not try to persuade them of my beliefs or belittle or ridicule theirs.  It is not my purpose or right to tell other people what to believe. I have no patience or space in my head for haters, people who demonize those they disagree with and make them monsters.

They are enemies of reason, free speech, and democratic values. They are damaging our precious and fragile system.

I do not argue my feelings on Facebook or Twitter, forums built efficiently for expressing rage or hysteria but not for civil communication or understanding. Connection for its own sake is pointless. To connect with another human, I must listen as well as speak.

Be gentle, I tell myself. Listen and learn. Follow my heart and remember to like the face I see in the mirror each morning. That is the only one that can guide my moral choices. Say or do nothing I will regret at another time. I resolve to  not hate those who disagree with me, or those who are hateful to me because of what I believe.

I am smarter and wiser than no one, my world is filled with hues of gray and shade. I do not live in the black and white world of labels, anyone has the capacity to be right. The gift of hatred and rage is that it gives me the opportunity to be better, to do good.

I resolve in this turbulent year, this time of finger-pointing and rage, to be my own good example, since our leaders do not care to inspire us, but mostly manipulate us. I want to be my own revolution, to listen, to strive to do good. To take my photos and write my words.

I strive to make human connections wherever I am – at the pharmacy, in a box store, on the telephone with a giant company I know does not really think I am important to them. Every connection is a beam of light, a cause for hope.

I understand that the for-profit corporate news is neither truthful nor reflective of the human spirit. The criminal is damaged and frightening, the hypocrite is truly evil, beneath mercy or contempt. H.L. Mencken writes that the demagogues and racists are an ingrained tradition in our culture, they prey and rise quickly on the fears of the masses of people, and fail and inevitably fail when they are called up to offer more than fear and hate. They never can, he says, because they are not able to.

They don’t really know how to do anything but stir the boiling pots of anger and fearfulness.

Joseph Campbell says revolution does not come from the streets outside, but from within each of us., from our commitment to leading our lives.

“A revolution is supposed to be a change that turns everything around,” wrote Thomas Merton. “But the ideology of political revolution will never change anything except appearances. There will be violence, and power will pass from one party to another, but when the smoke clears and the bodies of all the dead men are underground, the situation will be essentially the same as it was before: there will be a minority of strong men in power exploiting all the others for their own ends.  There will be the same greed and cruelty and lust and ambition and avarice and hypocrisy as before.”

For the revolutions of men change nothing, he says. The only influence that can really upset the injustice and inequity of men is the light and love with in us.

People who preach hate and explore fear are gifted vampires to me, they feed off the blood and souls of the suffering and the displaced, they grow fat like ticks on terror and confusion. They have nothing to offer me, and nothing to do with me. I do not care to join any system that accommodates them.

It is a conceit to tell other people what to believe and feel, I am not that strong or wise. It is a tragedy to let others determine what I feel and make me tremble and worry.

This appears to be the season of rage, I see anger and resentment all around me, in the air. I am resolved to deal with it well.  The Kabbalah says “go to yourself, know yourself, fulfill yourself.” If I make my own revolution, no one can take it from me or stop me from creating it. My salvation will always be what is within me, not what is outside of me.