I have learned to turn suffering into good in some ways for some time now, and I’m getting better at it.
We all suffer, but many of us can’t let go of it or don’t wish to. It’s so easy to get stuck in our new quicksand: hate and anger.
I don’t tell other people what to do, but I do share what I am learning in my spiritual work. It has done me a lot of good, and so has meditation. I’m finding my center and going there when I need to.
This week taught me more, made me a little stronger, and made me much more humble. I decided not to belittle people who see the world differently or hate them for it. You either believe in democratic rule, or you don’t. I do. It means something besides condemning others who disagree.
Earlier this week, after the election, I realized that I did not foresee what was happening or understand what happened. No pundit, friend, or media is able or willing to tell me that. And how could they?
They never speak to humans anymore; they quote from wildly unreliable polls. You can only get wisdom out of a laptop rarely.
I’m on my own. I refuse label myself like a dog on a collar.
I am surrounded by people who think differently than me yet have been generous and good to me. How could there be such a wide gap in comprehension? I am humbled and determined to listen and learn.
First, I need to disengage myself from the chaos, surprise, and confusion, let it go for a while, back up, turn off the news, meditate, and find time to do what I love and am good at—blogging, photography, working at the Food Pantry, and living my life with Maria on this beautiful farm.
In our culture, arguments, and hatred grow on trees, split families and friends, and feed the air; I want to be in the minority: I want to understand what has just happened. I have yet to read, speak with, or talk to anyone who can tell me what happened and why.
I can obsess over what I might have lost, soak up the fear and anger, or decide to do something else: do what I love and feel good about, do more of both.
I will not hate anyone because they disagree with me; that is a dread poison. I will not embrace the notion that everything is lost but instead that there is much to gain and learn; I can’t predict the future any more than I anticipated the now.
I went out this morning and spent a half hour with Zip, Zinnia, my camera, and my flowers. Maria and I sat and meditated together. It lifted me right up, and the wind blew hope along with the fallen leads.
This was a beautiful thing for me. Next, I will seek to raise money for towels and toilet paper at the Cambridge Food Pantry and help the people who are hungry and broke and have no one to turn to. I will be that someone, along with my very beloved Army of Good. My time with Maria is sacred, as is the farm, my block, my work.
I want to understand why I do not know what happened in our country. I’m not sure what America means now; I sense there is good and evil in this jolt. My grandmother’s United States is gone; I need to rethink what this means for me, my daughter, and my granddaughter, not just tremble over it.
I can choose to wring my hands and wallow in anger and judgment (no, they are not all stupid bigots, not by a long shot; I’ve lived in the country too long for that). I love the idea of democracy. It was one of the great new ideas of the modern world. Do I believe in it? Do I know how to respect the judgment of so many millions of fellow citizens? Is everyone who disagrees with me foolish, blind, and selfish? I don’t think so.
I don’t have the answers; I want to find some and find mindful acceptance. I’ll gladly share my experience if anyone wishes to hear it.
Deciding that I am right and everyone is wrong is not who I want to be. It’s lazy and sad, and it’s the very definition of elitism.
It freezes the mind and alienates much of the world. I am no better than anyone else. I am determined to open my mind and ears to learning. That means I have a lot of work to do, like thinking, not lecturing.
The country I grew up knowing is over. I will face the new one with empathy and an open mind and take what comes with grace.
That is where my meditation path has taken me. I believe in America and owe it to some consideration. My Grandmother insisted that God made it.
A friend called angrily to ask how my predictions and beliefs could have been wrong. Well, I said, that’s the point. How could almost everyone miss this upheaval?
People who are afraid to be incorrect are also scared to think. That would frighten me much more than being wrong.
My task is to understand before reaching instant and often mindless assumptions. The world’s end has not come, in my mind, unless I’m just missing that. We are not just a nation of morons and bigots, it’s much more complicated than that, and I will think hard and work hard to try and understand it rather than feel sorry for myself and wallow in fear.
I’ve been there and done that. Panic and hatred don’t work.
There is no going back to that for me.
I like the idea of stepping back, listening, learning, reading, and thinking, of doing so in peace, of devoting myself every day to doing good, writing good, taking good pictures, and being a husband who devotes much of his life to supporting his wife, her art, her dreams, her decency, and strength.
There is silence up here, and the chaos dulls. The quiet is precious for me, a wonderful place to think without distraction.
I will always remember how fortunate I am, how meaningful my life is, and how much good to do lies ahead. Pain is inevitable. Suffering is a choice. I choose my life to be meaningful and full of hope and gratitude. No politician on either side of things will take that ever from me.
I’ll be blogging and taking photos every day; stay with me if you can and wish.
As a woman, eighty, widely traveled, well educated, I speak from first-hand knowledge. What happened is discrimination exemplified. Men are viewed as superior, smarter, stronger than women, even by many women. It’s a generalization that becomes reality at the time of voting. There’s much more to it, but from my perch, it seems that’s what was the determining factor.
I don’t hate people who disagree. I hate that they disagree for the wrong reason, because they were misled with lies. I hate that people cannot listen to one another and no one will ever persuade me to think it is right to elect as leader a convicted felon, proven liar and sexual predator…who is incoherent and totally disrespectful of absolutely everyone. I am appalled that everyone is backing off and accepting because it is the constitutional way. He cares not a fig for the Constitution or anyone but himself. People were frightened, lied to and afraid of civil war, so they voted for him. I don’t approve of violence but sometimes you have to fight. WW2 taught us that – I thought. Sorry to be so negative, Jon, but it’s how I feel. Since when do we give in to bullies?
I’m no good at hating, Carolyn; it has always hurt me more than the thing I hate…But I understand how you feel. You do not need to apologize for your feelings; you have earned the right. If I thought being angry helped, I’d pick it up again.
Maybe hate is the wrong word. When I think about the disconnect between the two sides and the way people are manipulated it outrages my sense of justice. Hate consumes one from the inside. I’ll admit though that my guts feel as if they’re being eaten up right now.
I hear you
I realized yesterday that I am in mourning. The loss is not the election, but my belief that the structure this country was built on would get us through the attack by the MAGA crowd and the political Christians. I see now that it hasn’t, at least right now. So I am giving myself time to work through the grieving steps and regain my balance. In the meantime, I will donate to and volunteer at my local food pantry, love my family, and be as kind to the people I encounter as I can. The postmortems about how this happened, and the hair-on-fire projections about what might happen are not helpful, so I will avoid these in the news and in people I know. You are a steadying voice…much needed.
Jacque, thanks I feel in mourning also, but I also want to understand what happened before I can be certain about things. It was a great shock to me, and a sad one in many ways. I’m not doing anger and hate, I intend to move forward with my life.
Wow, did I have it wrong. I think I’m more out of touch with this country’s population than I realized. I’m a older white male, pretty comfortable, and I’ve been well enough rewarded by the tech industry that I have no personal experience of wondering where I’m going to get food to feed my family. I’ve never really feared for my safety from other people; at least not for very long. I’ve never had to work so many hours in the day that I had no time for the news or really anything else. I went to college, and never had a student loan because I was given scholarships. I generally know that the costs of things are too high, but to be honest I don’t have to worry about what things cost day to day. To realize that the majority of the voting people in this country want and need a change — mostly economically — so much is a wakeup call for me. I don’t believe Trump won because of anything he’s done or said; I think he won because he’s not in charge now, and people need things to change. Sure, there are some that welcome the more repugnant things about him and the people he surrounds himself with, but I think the deciding factor was that in the richest (and possibly cruelest) nation, people are barely getting by, or not getting by, and decided that enough is enough; it can’t get any worse and maybe — MAYBE — a big change could be better.
I’ve known for years that this was never the nation I was instructed to believe it was. But I think I never understood just how different.
But nobody has to fix everything. But maybe we can each just fix one thing.
I thank you for the message Pete, America is no longer the country I grew up in, but I can’t say I am certain what it will be…I’m going to think about what happened and why, I just don’t know what happened, a very uncomfortable position for me.
Well stated, Pete. Thank you.
Jon I am glad you are able to allow yourself some grace. I promise you, so many of us believed exactly as you did – that Trump could never be president again, even if we didn’t choose to say it out loud. Now that the unthinkable has happened we will need to figure out how and why this happened and how to move forward. For now my personal challenge as always, is to practice being with what is.
Cindy
Cindy nice and thoughtful message, thank you..
this is well written and thoughtful post, Jon. Since Tuesday….. I have had many very meaningful conversations with people who have thankfully also embraced the *let go of anger or disappointment…..and move forward with positivity and good*. It has been helpful to share….and find strength and power among like minded philosophies……..to move on in a positive way for the good of not only ourselves..but for others…..and our country.
Susan M
It’s not easy, Susan, but I’m with you..thanks for the message..
I’m still deeply processing. I’m not ready to express anything yet. I’ve discovered that it may take me a little longer to hear my deepest feelings and then put them into words than some others.
However, I’ve seen several people in addition to you quoting Thich Nanh Hanh (spelling?) and I’m finding tjese quotes very soothing. I would like to read some of his books but am not sure which one to start with. Can you suggest a good starting place? Thank you!
Thích Nhất Hạnh wrote an ASTONISHING number of books; far more than I’ll ever be able to get through. The first one of his works I ever encountered was “How to Walk,” which I found one day in a bookstore and actually thought would be a piece of humor, because come on, instructions for walking? But one of his accomplishments was founding the Parallax Press, where you can find some of his works as well as similar ones by others. https://www.parallax.org
Have a good weekend, Jon. Thanks for your pictures – and sharing tales (!) of Zip.
Jon. I am curious. How is it that your blog already has comments by the time I read it even, it seems, when I read it soon after it is posted?
Karen, what you are seeing is not possible…People who subscribe get the blog one day after it is published..I guess that is what you are seeing..blog readers get it a day sooner..
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if humans could be more like dogs and cats and sheep and donkeys? They don’t worry about what kind of house they live in or what kind of clothes to wear or what kind of car to buy or what television news to watch—-as long as they’re sheltered and fed and loved, they’re fine. Humans should live from day to day and making the most of each one and enjoy the blessings they have instead of wanting more or something different. Enjoy your wonderful home (in every sense of the word) and keep sending us beautiful photograph!
As a public employee in the environmental field, I have been hearing undercurrents and outright statements supporting Trump for several years now. I was hoping we were better than that… apparently not. What happened to women and the young? I don’t know what our country stands for anymore. All the things taught to me as a child, do good, treat others with kindness and respect, take care of the poor, etc. don’t get you to the presidency anymore; being a cruel bully who only cares about yourself is what is now glorified. The next 4 years, if not longer, are going to be tough. I don’t know what magic wand people think trump is going to wave to make everything “great” again. I am still processing everything, and how I go forward. As John Lewis has said, keep up the good fight,