Let Nothing You Dismay

In previous posts I have tried to pull some of the threads out of the fabric of the recent cluster-fuck that was the 2016 election, thinking that organizing the horror in neat little pieces would make it better somehow. As I sit today, staring out into space, wondering why I feel so sad and bewildered, I am as paralyzed as I am angry. It is the best month of the year, arguably. Christmas is a time for children, and the joy is usually contagious. It is fast approaching, and yet I feel as though I barely woke from the stupor I’ve been in since November. There is too much apocalyptic talk in the media. The republic is over. Democracy is dead. We are entering an era of neo-fascism akin to the science fiction movies that tell of a distant future when we live in a world we’ve destroyed by our own hubris.  And yet it is Christmas, and my son is still looking forward to Santa Claus coming, and I still sometimes forget to move that goddamn elf in the middle of the night, and the world around me doesn’t look much different than it did before this nightmare of an election raped us all of our sense of place and perspective. Except on the inside. On the inside my world is very different now. I have nightmares of being attacked by a bald human eagle. I wake from nightmares like that to the unimaginable reality of brazen kleptocrats showing up uninvited to the family dinner, moving in to the White House like hill people, gold-plating the toilets and shitting on the good linen. I can’t get into the Christmas spirit. Maybe it’s because I’m told that this pig we’ve elected has saved the season for us all, as he travels around on his thank you tour, positioned on the dais behind fake Christmas trees, with signs that look like Hallmark cards. Bah. Herod is coming to the manger, bearing gifts. ‘What child is this?’ he says, licking his tiny porcine fingers.

There is not the spirit of love in Christmas town this year.

Under the tree this year are presents wrapped with fake-news paper and ribbons of deceit. Every stocking is hung by the chimney with sanctimonious self-satisfaction by the ignorant, filled with hatred and gloating and contemptible bravado. The ghost of Christmas future gestures at a wasteland. Barren and grey, the tree branches naked of leaves, the sky heaves to the heaven in the cold setting sun, dark with the promise of industrial revival and jobs for a dying and forgotten class. This is our gift this year. The illusory gift that to some might look like prosperity or hope, but is really just an empty box, perhaps cruelly nested in other empty boxes, wrapped in indecency after indecency.

In tales of wisdom, in the fables of our mythology, in popular culture, the people with small hearts are often saved from hate. Every Who down in Who-ville knows this. Perhaps this is the story we are seeing unfold before us. One can hope. But waiting for a Christmas miracle, or old St. Nick to show, won’t suffice. On the other hand, I worry that hatred against the hatred is in some way unproductive, however that hate may feel rational. I wonder if my heart is two sizes too small. I suppose that integrity and virtue and decency are not set up as a quid pro quo, and taking the moral high ground never demands that the other guy will in return. There is a line to walk in having to accept an unacceptable reality. Anger and disdain and outrage and fear and a constant feeling of injustice is my new baseline. This is not a healthy way to live. It’s not good for the soul, and it’s not good for the household. It’s easy to hate. I hate Donald Trump. I hate his family, all of those insufferable whores. I hate Mike Pence, that passive silver honky preacher of pure white rural hate. I hate Kellyanne Conway, the soulless skank of Christmastown. I hate Steve Bannon, that smug alcoholic anarchist groper. I hate Reince Priebus, that spineless coward of a man. I hate Michael Flynn and Rex Tillerson and Betsy Vos and Mitch McConnell and Dana Rohrbacher and Paul Ryan and the entire cuckolded republican party. I suppose I could go on and on, spewing hate as bilious and vile as the characters that inspire it. And truly, lately, that is all I have been trying to suppress, politely and in keeping with social convention. That’s really it. I have been trying to avoid the hate that I feel. It feels good to let it out. But hate comes at a cost, too dear to pay. My heart is shrinking. I can feel it.

My heart is shrinking when it should be growing. It needs to open up wide like a lotus flower, to receive the love that emanates from the Brotherhood of Man, to channel it and amplify it and magnify it and send it back out into the world so that its power might touch those that feel lonely, to embrace those that feel afraid, to comfort the sick and perhaps by some divine and magical power, to touch those that have no hearts. As we lay ourselves down for that long winter’s nap, it is useful to be free of the outrage, of the anger, of the hate. It is perhaps the key to success when challenged by such adversity. It will help gain perspective, and to build the healthy resolve that will be required to stand against hate and injustice with passion and acumen. The next few weeks should be quieter—less volume in the markets, less volume on the news, less shenanigans from the kleptocracy. Replenish the well, for we have work to do, and it will require our whole hearts.

Here, my dear friends, I wish you great tidings of comfort and joy.