Multiple Realities

As we move into spring, I am feeling burdened by the impact of local, state, and national decisions, especially when these decisions directly affect community members, neighbors, colleagues and family. Washington’s budget deficit is forcing cuts and layoffs, and those reductions cause communities to face reduced access to food, housing, transportation, health care and more. 

I often turn to voices from current and past leaders as I wrestle with my own emotions:  

“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly now, love mercy now, walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” Talmud

“The human heart is the first home of democracy. It is where we embrace our questions. Can we be equitable? Can we be generous? Can we listen with our whole beings, not just our minds, and offer our attention rather than our opinions? And do we have enough resolve in our hearts to act courageously, relentlessly, without giving up – ever-trusting our fellow citizens to join with us in our determined pursuit of a living democracy?” Terry Tempest Williams

“In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be… This is the inter-related structure of reality.” Martin Luther King, Jr

“It is in the shelter of each other that people live.” Irish Proverb

“To refuse to participate in the shaping of our future is to give up. Do not be misled into passivity either by false security (they don’t mean me) or by despair (there’s nothing we can do). Each of us must find our work and do it.” Audre Lorde

I can get pulled into a debate about whether I am impacted if someone bans the word “woman” but that’s distracting (me) us from more important questions. I’ve written before about moments when I feel this internal primal scream being lifted up. And for me, as spring starts here in the Northwest, I got caught in images of people who were being prepared to be deported, watching their faces and heads shaved, then bent over as they were led into cages, and bent over as they walked up the steps into an airplane. 

And I had to accept a hard truth, this too is my country – treating people without humanity, without dignity, without due process. I realize that you may see the same images quite differently than I do. So much trauma – to those being deported, and to the staff (also human beings) who are being directed to treat other human beings in such a way. I am at a loss as to how shaming, demeaning, and dehumanizing anyone gets us one minute closer to justice and safety.  

We live in multiple realities at the same time. We can appreciate the changing of the seasons, recognize that our planet is alive, and that we can keep our cultures and communities growing and thriving. 

And we have some pretty serious work ahead of us too. For North Sound, we’ll continue to turn toward each other, to lift up love and opportunity and belonging, to resist anyone who asks us to “other” people in our community. We will never be a region where everyone feels like they belong if our starting point is to try and figure out who doesn’t. 

We are grateful to be in space with you and we thank you for just doing all the work that you do.