Avoid Despair | Survivor Songs
What a relief for the break in the hot spell here in New England. I've loved the afternoons in the pool, but mostly felt like I couldn't even go outside. We will be back on our deck this afternoon and evening, enjoying the pleasant air.
-Liz
Now is not the worst time ever.
I worked at Worcester Fellowship, a street church reaching homeless and at risk adults, in 2016. After the election my co-pastor and I prepared a sermon about how to stay strong when we all knew that immigrants and poor people would be losing rights and services as a consequence of that election.
And when we finished our reassurance, our homeless parishioners came up intending to calm us. "Don't worry Pastor Liz, we'll get by. We always have." We talked to other street church pastors and the results were the same. Our parishioners didn't see a big difference between yesterday when things were bad, and today when they are worse.
Which is not to argue that things are fine. Nor to deny that it will get worse before it gets better.
To try to make this the worst time is to try to one-up on oppression. It’s never a good idea. It doesn’t matter, and can’t be determined if the discrimination of one group is worse than discrimination of another group. We all lose when anyone is treated as less than.
For those of us who are white, middle class, cis-gender, straight, US born, speak english, and lived in the US all our lives, it is possible that we have not experienced anything worse than right now. But for many others the Trail of Tears and the Rwandan Genocide and the Holocaust, and chattel slavery, and the plague, and the Khmer Rouge, and the Great Chinese Famine, and more, and more and more, these were the worst ever. Not to mention Noah’s flood, the Babylonian exile, the fall of Rome. Perhaps the entire middle ages?
It is important to not try to identify now as the worst because for many people, it was already pretty bad. And focusing on worst contribute to our sense of despair, and that these problems are unconquerable.
It was already pretty bad.
The idea that this is the worst will not ring true for people for whom our nation has never worked well.
Our good, ethical, kind leadership of years past did not end homelessness, create enough housing for people who are poor, expand medicaid to all who need it, do the research needed to understand addiction, and more. Under good, honest, leadership, under governments that were concerned about the common good, poverty has hovered around 11-12% of our nation. The number one provider of mental health services was (and is) our jails. We've always deported huge numbers of immigrants, and paid those who remain lower wages, and offered horrible working conditions.
The entire middle of our country has a shortage of access to health care. A friend of my family, living in Montana, had to live in their travel trailer to get high level cancer treatment in Salt Like City. There were no hospitals within a days drive to provide their care. The present administration will make this worse, but it is not true to say that it was okay before.
The past is not a beautiful place to return.
Focusing on worst contributes to despair
The idea of worst feels unlivable. It leads to people imagining moving away, or hiding in our homes, or simply giving up. Living with the worst feels impossible.
Acknowledging that it has been awful before, and learning from those times, is important. What did the resistance do during other difficult situations? What are the strategies people used to communicate, to protect their neighbors, to keep their sense of integrity? We can learn from other times because there have been other times.
We must live in these times, and in stubborn reaction to the fear imposed on us; we must find a way to thrive. We acknowledge our fear and our despair, then get up and insist that due process, and financial safety nets, equal treatment, and healthcare are worth fighting for. We have to figure out how to live in this badly imperfect nation.
Now is not the worst time ever.
I'd love to hear how you are getting by during these hard times. Reply to this email to let me know.
Singer Songwriter Derek Webb has an album Survivor Songs with songs like Queer Kid, Nail Polish, and Stay Safe.
See something, say something. That message has kind of creeped me out--that we are supposed to report on our neighbors. But Ice Block is an app for reporting when you see ICE in action. Widely used in LA it is gaining traction in other cities as well. Only for Apple Phones, sorry.
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