Stepping Aside

 

"We will be known as a culture that feared death and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity for the few and cared little for the penury of the many. We will be known as a culture that taught and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke little if at all about the quality of life for people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a commodity. And they will say that this structure was held together politically, which it was, and they will say also that our politics was no more than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of the heart, and that the heart, in those days, was small, and hard, and full of meanness."

When somebody—anybody— says something you know to be true better than you can articulate it, there is nothing to do but step aside and let them speak. And so I cede the floor to Mary Oliver above, that most eloquent and insightful poet. Ms. Oliver so wisely spent most of her days in company with the birds, bugs and beasts of this beautiful world and rarely had much to say about the nightmare of the news. So in the rare moments when she did, we would do well to pay attention. Here she hits every nail on the head building a house of words that express our shame. We would do well to reflect and ask ourselves: “What am I doing to contribute to this poisonous way of life, either through my actions or inactions, my words or my silence? What am I doing to resist it, to change it, to heal it? What the hell are we all doing here? And why?”