Where Do We Go From Here?
On Grief, Rage, Action and Unreasonable Joy...
Friends, trigger warnings every other line. All of this is hard. Scroll by if you need to.
Sleep has been playing hide and seek this week and I don’t have the energy to seek.
I have been alternating between reeling and screaming into my pillow and packing my house into boxes at 4 in the morning.
Add googling. So much googling.
How do I move to Ireland? Winter weather in Minnesota. Cost of living in Maryland. Wool socks. Filming locations of Downton Abbey.
I just want to live in a state that isn’t at some level content with killing me. All the while dog-paddling in a sea of existential dread.
There are moments when my rage at the looming injustice feels like the fury of a hurricane.
I want to fix it. Understand it. Build common ground. Organize to protect the vulnerable. (And myself, because I am vulnerable too). I want to DO SOMETHING. Get a game plan. Do ANYTHING but sit in the pit of grief in my soul.
I want to figure out ways forward, understand where the strategy went wrong, develop better messaging, and forge brave connections.
There’s part of me that wants to keep the peace… which is often worlds apart from making peace. Sometimes keeping peace is just a neatly clothed trauma response. Making peace is hard, messy, and costly work.
You will never convince me the twice impeached, convicted felon and sexual predator who deserves to be sitting behind bars and not the resolute desk is simply a good guy with a misunderstood sense of humor.
But I do want to understand how and why people in my world I care about, who I have seen have genuinely good judgment in so many other things could believe that.
Truthfully, I fear we could easily be trending on the world’s failed states list for flagrant human rights abuses and the curtailing of democratic freedoms, and be nearing or in economic freefall in the next few months.
My conservative friends tell me this will not happen. Because elected officials want to be re-elected. Because all the bluster was a negotiating strategy. I truly hope they are right and all the Nobel laureates join me in being completely wrong. Please, conservative friends. Prove all of us wrong.
But with this election, we have entered an unprecedented era of policies being driven by notions of American theocratic autocracy. Policies that will deeply and irrevocably harm vulnerable people if its Frankenstein monster agenda of political power gilded in Jesus’ name gets enacted.
So what do we do? Where do we go? How then do we live? Even as the hateful rhetoric, racism, and misogyny are already slamming into the social media spaces like tidal waves spawned by an earthquake.
How do we forge a new way forward? I have some thoughts. They are imperfect. They are developing. They are in no way meant to minimize the impact of the weight of injustice or how terrifying some of the worst-case scenarios might be. These are just some of the things I’m pondering.
Take what helps, leave the rest.
Take the time you need to process what is happening. Come back here when it’s helpful to do so.
On Relentless Hope, Unreasonable Joy
There are going to be a lot of broken places we cannot mend right then and there. There are going to be fires of injustice that we cannot put out entirely in the moment.
This is a long game. This is an ultramarathon, not a mile sprint.
There are going to be a lot of things we cannot control. But there are going to be many, many things we can control. And we need to focus there.
Personally, there is a great likelihood I will lose access to medical care. And my life may be dramatically shortened accordingly.
I’m angry and worried about that. Deeply. But we aren’t there yet. And we may never get there.
So I can’t let that derail me from doing the next right thing, the next bit of good that I can do… the thing that’s right in front of me.
A joy-fueled movement of relentless hope, practical compassion, and intentional action is tyranny’s worst nightmare.
This is a movement that doesn’t look like storming edifices or using the tactics it has denounced. We are a movement that looks like loving our neighbors, standing in the way of oppression, and refusing to stop calling the people around us to a better story.
On Building Hyper Local Community
It is in our darkest, hardest moments that we need one another with skin on more than ever.
I love the online space. Obviously. But in times like these, we also need hyper-local communities that provide practical support and connection.
I’ve been thinking a lot about mushrooms and the fellowship of the fungi this week. They have a rootlike network underground called mycelium. And some of the rarest mushrooms only appear after a forest has experienced a wildfire.
This seems like an apt metaphor to hold onto when the world feels like it’s burning.
The interconnection of community relationships below the surface of things can bring something new and beautiful even in the wake of incredibly hard times.
Burn morel (Morchella spp.) mushrooms, or post-fire morels, are a prime example of something beautiful coming from a great disturbance. When an area of forest is burned, morels are able to grow prolifically all over the ground. Mycelium is the underground root-like part of a mushroom. The mycelium of burn morel mushrooms have a mutually beneficial relationship with roots of various types of trees. Underground their root systems of the trees and the mushrooms are intertwined. The mycelium may lay dormant for up to 50 years, only fruiting mushrooms after a fire comes through. - Walking Mountains
What if these are those times?
If you are struggling and fear what might be coming, please don’t isolate. Reach out here. I’ll be writing more. Keep your ear to the ground for like-hearted folks local to you as well.
If I can find them in deepest red Florida, it’s a good bet they exist somewhere where you live as well.
On Looking for Where the Light Pours In
In the middle of history’s darkest nights of pain, loss, and grief, it’s long been the poets, artists, and creatives that rise to mend the broken places.
I said that on Instagram and someone DMed me to tell me they were leaving because I was being too political.
If calling out darkness and injustice, advocating for genuine connection, or pointing to where there’s light pouring in is too political, then let me just hum the chorus of hi, it’s me, I’m the problem it’s me.
One thing I am not doing anymore... Letting anything or anyone silence my voice.
The voices of the bullies are loud. But the voice of the beloved can be louder.
Creativity itself is resistance. Choosing kindness is rebellion. Seeking beauty when it feels like life wants to crush the hope from our lungs is an act of defiance.
No king and no force of empire gets to change who we are. Ever.
What if our darkest moments exist to reveal a sky full of stars? In the coming days, we may need a whole community of voices to remind us to keep looking up.
Hang with me here. We’ll remind one another.
On Brave Conversation
Over the last few days, I have had in-depth conversations with many of my conservative friends. And I have many conservative friends.
DISCLAIMER: This may not be the work you are called to, at least right now. Just because I am in a privileged space where I am safe and supported enough to venture into this territory is not me telling you you need to do this work too. We all have different roles to play.
In all our divisions right now, I still hold out hope for finding common ground.
Because as frustrated, angry, and heartbroken as I am, cutting off all relationships feels like cutting off any hope of finding the understanding needed to forge a common way forward.
That doesn’t mean I tolerate bad behavior or lose my convictions in the name of “civility”. Not at all.
I will fully take up space and be unapologetic about it.
I will not tolerate unkindness- from others or myself.
I will not shut down respectful conversations BUT I also will not back down because of bullying behavior towards myself or others.
I will form and find local networks of support and work to build community spaces that serve and protect the vulnerable.
I will alchemize my anger into creative action.
When hate rears its head, I will refuse to meet it on its own terms.
I will not assume the negative before I have evidence for it.
But neither will I soften my beliefs to accommodate or make space for behaviors that harm the marginalized, or that aim to gaslight issues.
I will not engage in unproductive dialogue that is dismissive or demeaning towards me or marginalized groups of people.
I will vote with my money and my time and will work to reduce feeding systems that actively work for the harm of others.
I will have hard conversations and ask tough questions.
I will stand in love. I will rally with like hearts. I will not bow to oppression. I am not powerless.
Authoritarian power structures thrive in fear and silence. I will give them neither.
On Understanding This Moment
I spent 20 years inside the Christian nationalist ecosystem that had a huge role in creating our current reality. They have played a LONG game over decades. And we need to realize we may need to do the same.
I’m truly glad you are here. There are a lot of unknowns ahead. And that is scary.
But you aren’t alone.
Life at the Margins is going to be a place where I unpack my thoughts about the crossroads of faith, culture, and civic engagement in this new era of American history.
Some of the people I love deeply in my world think I’m a sheep and you know what I’m OK with that… I would rather be a sheep than a goat or a frog. And to be fair, they have never heard me roar. That’s about to change.
in times like these, love roars.
This is a bit of a sanity project for me and it is a safe space to be who you are.
In all the beauty of your becoming, in your big uncertainties, your deep rage, and your holy hope… you are welcome here.
If you know someone who needs to hear these things or be reminded they aren’t alone, please hit the share button and send it their way. It will help us find one another.
Leaning into Love,
Michele
PS. I will leave the comments open as long as they stay respectful and kind. 🫶🏻
If I could leave I would, but I have to stay and see the Chaos unfold. It’s difficult to believe that so many fell for a false message. Also, the vulgar language that filled the air and I was so surprised it didn’t seem to bother Franklin Graham and others. There is a statement that Trump made that really bothers me. “If you vote for me, you won’t have to vote again.” Also, if any of us were guilty of what Trump has done, we would already be sitting in a prison cell. I’ve said enough!