“There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender. The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future, or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.”
~ G'kar, from the television series, Babylon 5
Dr. Stephen Franklin: "It's all so brief, isn't it? Typical human lifespan is almost a hundred years, but it's barely a second compared to what's out there. It wouldn't be so bad if life didn't take so long to figure out. Seems you just start to get it right and then .. it's over."
Lt. Commander Susan Ivanova: "Doesn't matter. If we lived two hundred years, we'd still be human.
We'd still make the same mistakes."
Dr. Stephen Franklin: "You're a pessimist."
Lt. Commander Susan Ivanova: "I am Russian, Doctor. We understand these things."
~ Scene from the television series, Babylon 5
(No political statement here. I just find this painting powerful, beautiful, and haunting. Something about the woman in the foreground standing over the dead woman.)
Once, sometime long ago, I heard a man describe their relationship with God as a chase, with God as the predator, and he as the prey. No matter how many times he tried to shake God off from his trail, God would always manage to find him. That description has stayed with me through many decades. As often as I have tried to dismiss God, to turn away from so many signs that have been presented to me, to argue away coincidence, a series of events fall into place, lifting the veil of doubt my intellect constantly draws across my soul.
But this is not about my struggles with God (I'll save that for a future post). Instead, I shared that intimate information in order to provide context for what follows. Five little, personal experiences--and the emotions surrounding them--coalesced around a single, important political event that happened last week. The first one, which took place nearly a week before, prepared me mentally for it. The next three, which occurred just minutes before I started watching, directed my attention towards it. And the final one, appearing a few days later, brought it all into focus.
On Wednesday, January 6, 2021, several hundred of my fellow citizens, with the direction and consent of the current President, transformed their decades-long anger and frustration into hatred and resentment: they stormed the Capitol building with the intent to violently disrupt the political process. Overcoming my severe dislike for following the major news networks, especially when it involves breaking news, I spent that day, from around three in the afternoon until eleven that evening, checking in on CNN's website in order to follow that day's events (with an occasional glance at NPR's coverage).
But I nearly misunderstood what was happening, and almost missed out on witnessing it. Thank God for showing me the way.
About a week before, I came across a comment, to a Facebook post, from someone I knew personally. The original post, a news article, was about the rise in hospitalizations and deaths as a result of the Pandemic. Even though he was in the midst of it, he dismissed the fear as unfounded and misdirected. In addition, he defended the President's initial lies about the Pandemic's severity as necessary, in order to prevent panic. Basically, this person rejected the possibility that he was wrong, and presented it in condescending tone. He clung to his ideology. I hate ideologies. Reading it on a public forum tapped into a frustration that had been building up inside me. I let loose in a private chat with my cousins and siblings. In my emotional tirade, and the responses I received--including an important suggestion--I discovered things about myself and my current beliefs. While I am not proud about the way I expressed myself, there were in those hot words, insights I needed in order to face what was to come.
Just before 3 pm on January 6, I found myself spending too much time on a social media site. Instead of completing personal projects and housework, I sat down in my recliner, and began reading informative, educational posts. That is how I distract myself, and put off doing work. Well, in one of those posts, someone mentioned how some protestors broke rank outside the Capitol Building in Washington DC, and began forcing their way through the doors. This halted the counting and certification of electoral votes. So, I decided to verify (social media can be untrustworthy at times). I visited CNN, which I do not like to do, and found an article describing chaos. There was a live video, which I refused to click on, because I do not like watching breaking news. Well, at that very moment, just as I was about to turn away from the site, I received a text from a good friend, whom I had been conversing with about politics for some time. She mentioned the protestors, the rioting, the lockdown, and stopping the vote. Yes, I admit, having her reach out to me about it changed my mind. She piqued my curiosity. More importantly, I did not want to end up looking ignorant when she brought it up. And I am forever grateful that she sent it at that exact moment. Quickly I turned on CNN's live feed of the event. By God's grace, I heard what I needed to hear, a Republican Congressman condemning the President, and calling him coward. In real time, as things were unfolding. The timing was uncanny.
I was hooked, drawn into an important historical event. But I was also caught up in a moment of revelation. Not since the 2016 election was I so committed to watching the news as it unfolded. For eight hours, my attention moved rapidly from one thing to another: live videos, a pathetic speech, articles and updates, dinner, text messages, conversations, a phone call, roll calls, dissents and affirmations. Sometime among all that I posted a short, but direct political message on Facebook. I am glad I did it. Ideas began cropping up in my head; my mind started turning out responses to the crisis. Blog posts filled my imagination. Rants and tirades, really. Filled with unfounded claims and emotional pleas. But, mostly mean-spirited arguments and statements. Born from anger and frustration, morphing into hatred and resentment.
Those feverish dreams of authoring volumes about the event were calmed by a fifth experience, which, unsurprisingly, occurred on Facebook. A former student of mine, who gave me a lot of trouble, and for whom I gave little thought to since he left the school. At the time, if someone told me he ended up in drug rehab, or even prison, I would not have been surprised. He did end up surprising me, turning his life around as a young adult. Finding direction and meaning in his life. This past year, he decided to share his journey, and because of Facebook, I was able to discover quite a few things. But for the moment, it was his most recent post that directly relates to the event on January 6th and my relationship to it.
In that post, three days after the storming of the Capitol Building, my former student confessed his greatest fear: the fear of being wrong, of not looking intelligent in front of other people. It resonated with me on so many levels: here was my former student being vulnerable, speaking about a topic dear to me, at a time when I absolutely needed to hear it. He spent several years driving me up a wall with lies, attitude, and indifference. I left him for lost. But he found a way out. And now he is willing to open up about his struggles. More importantly, he is willing to be publicly wrong.
That takes courage, but also understanding.
Right now, I need quite a bit of both.
A part of me believes God wanted me to see all of this in a certain way.
Another part thinks this is all coincidence, and I am making it all seem more important than it is.
And a third part says it is time for bed. So I should leave all this here for now, and go get some sleep.
(To be continued...)
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