No shortage of crazy

Not shortage out there. And, often, not in here, either.

Shaken awake from my admiration of Kamala’s strength and passion and grit, I’ve spent the day eating the leftover Hallowe’en candy. And we had a lot of candy left over. Scott’s allergic to chocolate, so it is all mine save the twizzlers. I’m not quite finished, but I’m close.

Sugar hasn’t helped but that won’t stop me. The world seems to have tilted and the sense of sliding somewhere dangerous is all around me. It wells up inside every few hours; sometimes every few bites of chocolate. The tilt was exaggerated by my Prime Minister’s Facebook post. It congratulated Donald Trump on his election and suggested the friendship between our countries, Canada and the US, is the “envy of the world.” But I’m thinking, right now, that not many countries would want to be that close to crazy or share this, the longest border in the world.

Election Hangover binge. And that’s not the half of it….

Over my first few hits of chocolate, I finished knitting a sock and started adding a crocheted lace bit at the top. Every time I start to crochet, I begin in utter confusion. Then I remember to shift the hook in my left hand, having been taught by a leftie. (Maybe writing that, underscored with a sugar high, will embed the left hand thing in my brain for next time.) I went and did some banking. I shuffled some books around the shelves. I completed a crossover bag I was making from recycled material for my neighbour. I plotted out a new beading design. I reached out to some American colleagues and friends, people I know will have been stunned with the challenges the election results will create in their communities. And ate more chocolate.

Election hangover crocheted lace

The truth is, I simply don’t know what to do. And I welled up with tears as I typed that. (And again as I proofread it.) Everything seems utterly unrecognizable. And I’m bloody Canadian! I’m not even directly affected as are so many I know and love.

My colleague, Rabbi Brian Zachary Mayer, of Religion Outside the Box, helped. He posted a piece from Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic on social media. I work with Holiday’s book every morning. It stimulates reflection and writing. The ultimate goal, of course, is to learn to apply Stoic principles in my life as I live into these last years of my productivity and engagement on this beautiful little ball of blue. To be more intentional instead of my habit of just doing what shows up next. Rabbi Brian’s words allowed me to pause for a time, to let go of my frantic need to keep my fingers and mind and mouth engaged and distracted.

Our job today and tomorrow is the same as it’s always been—to be good, to be wise, to stand up for what’s right, to resist what is wrong and evil. Nothing changes that. Nothing exempts us from that. Nothing prevents us from doing that.

Yep. That’s true. It’s on us to live into the whirlwind of confusion and fear and whatever comes next and do what needs to be done. Be good. Be wise. Stand up for what is right. Resist wrong and evil. Can we do that? Yes. We can when we remember. And we must remember right now. We must.

Naming what is happening is always an important way to understand and engage with it. So I am calling this crazy and I invite you all to engage with it as just that: crazy. That doesn’t dismiss it. It provides room to understand it. Gives us the confidence to walk alongside it. Allows us to learn from it. And persists in speaking truth to it. Because crazy is crazy and we cannot afford to forget that.

No Shortage

There is no shortage of crazy out there.  
Crazy that heaps abuse on half the world and more. 
Crazy that steals lives, closes doors, tramples dignity, 
Crazy that claims bloody and terrible victories. 
Crazy that tries to keep me from you and you from me. 
Crazy that is spinning the whole world toward disaster. 
Crazy that kills. 

No shortage of crazy in here, either. 
Crazy that only sees people who sing and talk and dance like crazy is. 
Crazy that speaks of gods it does not know but claims to own. 
Crazy that wraps itself in language too dense to parse. 
Crazy that refuses responsibility, pasting morality upon a tainted sky. 
Crazy that nuances what you said, what I said, so that we never understand. 
Crazy that whispers we’re better, smarter, more worthy. 

Walk away. 
Walk away with me. 
Walk with me into con-fusion –  
the place of un-knowing where all is poured out together, 
mingling, mixing, blending disorder, 
where we can sort through our complicities, 
find our responsibilities, 
and lift them to our shoulders, 
bearing, finally, the weight that is ours to bear. 
You by my side and I by yours. 
Heads high. 
Dismantling crazy, one false truth at a time. *

There is much work to do. Hallowe’en candy may soothe the angst for a time, but it will not address the enormous challenge before us. Neither does living on the other side of a border free anyone of responsibility. Having voted “the right way” - whichever way you think that is - does not conclude your civic duty. We are bound together on this fragile planet by the democracies that have been proven more fragile than we would have believed. But that was yesterday.

Whitby morning sky

It is a new day and the light of this morning’s sky had never before been poured upon our lives. The same waning light of this evening will not settle upon the land again; it is spent. There is nothing to be done but that we rise up and meet these days of uncertainty with conviction, with courage, and with grace. And may the insanity of the moment provide us a common bond that will see us through whatever it is that crazy might throw at us.

*No Shortage, © 2017 Gretta Vosper