You might not know to mourn. After all, birds still soar. You might not know to feel the hollow ache of loss for bodies of water or animals & fish that have gone extinct. After all, the eagle still guards the river. And the otters still sneak past the mystery of the river.
Please read and listen to Krista Tippett during this time of deep turmoil unrest, division and uncertainty - and take heart - for with people like her in the world, and you as well, we will help each other, we will thrive and we will take care of our earth and humanity.
The News That Is ‘Breaking’ Is Never Seeing Things WholeOn deep truth, deep time, and the world ahead.
Dear Friends, It is, admittedly, hard to write something this week that feels fitting to the moment or wise. The Moment is overwhelming on so many fronts. I’ve found myself returning to the notion of Deep Truth, a core premise of physics first introduced to me by the wise and wonderful Nobel physicist Frank Wilzcek. Deep truths are not surface truths that can be reduced to mere fact, proven or unproven. In *fact*, one feature of a deep truth is that its opposite is also likely true. This is an age of devastating tumult. It is an age of magnificent possibility. Much is breaking. Much is being born. The two go hand in hand, and that is one of the deepest and strangest, most terrible and most redemptive truths of human reality. It is harder for us to train our eyes and imaginations on the beauty and creativity that are so alive in our world, the generative learning and stretching that are underway. These realities of our time are most visible close to home, in the worlds that we can see and touch. They are quiet. They do not trip the fear center of our brains, which inclines us to attend more seriously in every moment to what feels dangerous and destructive. And, in our time, that narrative of danger and destruction comes to us a thousand times, a thousand ways, each day. Just after the new year I was asked to offer a few words at a gathering in Washington D.C. for the outgoing Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and his team of colleagues (you may watch the moving ceremony here). I was delighted to honor these public servants who led with such dignity and curiosity and care. Many people lauded Dr. Murthy’s calm and calming presence. Deep truth: this is a gentle human capacity. And: there is scarcely a calling that could be more powerful to bring to our world of fear and pain. We need settled, grounded bodies and spirits in order to meet what is hard and hurting and rise to what is beautiful and life-giving. I want to be honest here: I am devastated and demoralized, too, by this Moment’s ravages, its shocking counterpoints of fragility and hubris. My heart breaks for the many human beings on the sharp edges of all that is breaking. We’re called to take what is harmful seriously and to care and protect, actively, as much as to calm, and Dr. Murthy does this too. And (not but)… there is such a thing as “deep time” too — the view of time of the geologist as well as the mystic, the long arc of the moral universe that Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of. Deep time doesn’t recognize the delineations we make in terms of years. It will see what is being seeded, what we tend across generations. What grows. The news that is, as we say ‘breaking,’ is never seeing things whole. Will you be my comrade in seeing things deep and whole and so keeping the possibility alive that wholeness and healing are what we grow and live into? In next month’s Pause, I’ll share some On Being offerings we’ll be making towards this in the months ahead, in the podcast feed and beyond. With love, and a muscular hope, Krista This is from Krista Tippett of the On Being Project. She can be found here and throughout social media - https://onbeing.org/series/podcast/  |
I
truly am lame when it comes to public speaking, activism, elevator speeches,
rousing the public and inviting people to join in. The thing is, everyone must
get this to some degree, you have to start. Sometimes, you just have to
initiate what you see as necessary. You may not be the right person. I’m sure
I’m not. But work with what you have. I am working with what I have. I have
three billion birds lost on my mind. I have made my throat soar calling “Ma”
and frankly, I’ve prayed and begged and pleaded my personal cause and the
worries about birds and the ecos until I feel I’ve laid a track on the cosmic
record. It plays by itself.
We consider the artist a special sort of person. It is more likely that each of us is a special sort of artist. – Elsa Gidlow
