Continuing the Work
Renovating in Sicily and moving through tragedy
I have lots to tell you. LOTS.
We’ve been back in Italy for the last few weeks, and I fully expected to be writing you more than ever this time. Alas. No wifi and no data. I’ll explain that more in another post. At 4am this morning, my mind was so overflowing with thoughts that I got up and began a list of things I want to share with you. At number 34, I stopped.
When I started this Substack, I really wanted to write about the intersection of home and mythology and psychology: theory and story based in real-life examples that would be helpful in our daily lives. I think I did a decent job of this for a while. Those thoughts are still there but they take longer to articulate. So, at least for the moment, my posts will not be so cerebral but more direct (back to that list of 34 things). Hopefully a few more significant thoughts will drop in along the way.
First, the elephant lumbering around Florida that needs to be acknowledged.
Like many of you, last week still seems inconceivable to me and in the realm of “he who shall not be named”.
The overwhelming feeling for me has been betrayal. I now know there was so much more going on that I didn’t recognize, yet I still think the betrayal is worth mentioning.
One of the most important elements of Home, of feeling at home in a place or with a person or people, is safety. This is where home breaks down for so many: their home is not safe. Yes, outside elements can have something to do with this but it is the violence inside that shatters any sense of home. And inside our home we expect there to be people who will protect us, love us, and act in ways that make us feel valued, worthy, and, yes, safe.
The same is true when Home extends to our friends, our community, our country.
My entire life I was taught that kindness matters. That caring about others and telling the truth are part of being a good person and being a good person matters. Laughing at another’s misfortune was one of the worst things you could do. Service to others matters. This was emphasized in the faith in which I was raised, the schools I attended, the actions of elders all around me, even in the political and moral landscape of our country.
When people had filters and were not so obviously mean and rude – that’s when America was great.
My father, a Lutheran pastor, taught me that being a Christian didn’t mean hitting someone over the head with a Bible but living your life is such a way that eventually someone might ask why? Why do you help the stranger? Why do you care about the wellbeing of others, even those you do not know? Why is love your response instead of anger or hate, especially when you have been wronged? And so on.
Let your life and your actions bear witness to your morals and your beliefs. Allow God to speak through you, not from the pulpit but on your knees, washing feet, picking up trash, feeding the hungry, helping the poor. Chose love over fear, kindness over hate.
It took decades for me to work through the sexual abuse I endured. Not just one episode but many and at multiple ages. I’m still reckoning with this. And then there’s the sexual violence against so many other women I know and love, not to mention the disgusting reality of statistics.
I suspected sexual abuse of a niece for many years before it finally came out in the open. Abuse that led to some extremely destructive behavior for over a decade.
Last week I discovered people in my house ignored this abuse and voted against the safety and worth of their own daughters, as well as me --even against themselves and their own best interests. People in my house voted for someone who is unkind, unethical, un-Christian, who has said he has never asked for forgiveness because he doesn’t think he’s done anything that needs to be forgiven, who acts only in his own self-interests, who has incited violence against others and our country, and who has said reporters should be shot. Someone who has made fun of veterans, honorable people, anyone who disagrees with him, people with disabilities and, of course, women. Someone who cheated on all his three wives, lied about it, and then later bragged about.. well, damn, I don’t need to repeat that, do I? He lies more than he tells the truth and has broken basically every moral code we claim to hold dear.
“I’m going to protect women, whether they like it or not.” – DT, 31 Oct 2024
And the day after the election, the Taliban—who have taken away all rights of women, including education—congratulated America. Women are not asking men for protection, we’re asking for men to stop being the thing we need protection from.
That people I know voted for this man over a criminal-prosecuting, positive and forward-thinking, joyful woman who believes in all that is good about America, well, that feels like betrayal. A back-stabbing betrayal.
But really, this is something far more sad. It is a shocking reflection of how many homes are not safe, of how many people have not received the love and security and sometimes even basic physiological necessities that imbibe us with a sense of value and gratitude rather than self-harm and selfishness.
Whatever we are raised in – even if it is harmful- becomes comfortable in its familiarity. If we are raised in negativity and lack, we become comfortable with negativity. We may seek to increase what we have but we will always be acting out of fear and deprivation. Without acknowledging the root of our thinking and emotions, we can never change our perspective for the better.
Healing only, always, comes from within. No friend or spouse or preacher or politician or anyone else can do this for us. We must do it ourselves.
Special thanks to Russell Max Simon for his post on Nov 7: What now, wherein he mentions this thought from Toni Morrison:
There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.
Written in 2004, following the reelection of George W, Morrison’s short essay is worth reading in full. In addition to the quote above, here are the words I need to remember:
I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence.
Those of us who dwell in possibility (thank you, Emily Dickinson) and positivity must have compassion for those who do not. Continuing to focus only my own feelings, and losing hope, does not help me or others. I must force myself to not dwell in that space.
Like Amaterasu Omikami, I wanted to shut myself away after I heard the news. I cried and I grieved. And now, I hear the calling of others who believe in something more. Now is not the time to hide our light. I still believe in honor and grace and integrity. Like “the loser” who said her heart is full of gratitude and love, I resolve to live the values I learned as a child and not succumb to malevolence.
The light of America’s promise will always burn bright, as long as we never give up… We have so much more in common than what separates us… I do not concede the fight for fairness and the dignity of all people… and the ideals that reflect the America at our best. We will continue [to fight] in how we live our lives, by treating one another with kindness and respect, by looking in the face of a stranger and seeing a neighbor, by always using our strength to lift each other up. . . .
Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. . . . Let us fill the sky with the light of billions of stars, the light of optimism, of faith, of truth, and service. – Harris 6 Nov 2024, watch full speech here.
Count me in. This is how we continue the work.
As for renovating an old train stop house in Sicily, more on that in my next post.
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Btw, f you are not familiar with Letters from an American, I highly recommend you check it out. It is a wonderful way to stay up to date and understand current politics in a larger frame of history.