I don't know how to make you care about other people
but what if we could?
Back in March (which feels like at least a decade ago), AHP used the above as a title of her newsletter. I’m stealing it because I think it sums up my frustration with the state of [waves her arms around her head flayingly] things. Each week, there is a news story that breaks about this administration that would not only sink any other administration immediately, but would be all the media/pundits talked about for months. Nearly 200,000 Americans have died of Covid-19. If we had the same death rate as the EU, we would have only 106,000 deaths; if we had the same death rate as Canada, we would have 81,000 deaths (source). This is an abysmal failure of governance and leadership at the federal level. But I digress. I don’t really want to talk about this administration’s malfeasance today.
I want to talk about how we could all care about one another more - how we could systematize the fact that all of the major religious and spiritual traditions and even those without spiritual traditions agree on: that we’re all in this together, that we should love and care for one another, and that we’re only as good as how we treat the weakest among us (to butcher Gandhi’s phrasing).
Religions used to be the way that we did this: get people to care about others. But religions don’t seem to be doing that great of a job at this. But I want to talk about what my religious upbringing taught me above all else:
The way up is down (see Matthew 20: 26-27 for one of the more infamous examples, Luke 14, Philippians 2, among many others), and
We are made in the image of God - and so is everybody else.
If the way up is actually down, then why are so many Christians continually trying to align themselves with political power? If we are all made in the image of God, why aren’t Christians protesting en masse about the kids in cages at the border, about the consequences of climate change, or about the continual violence faced disproportionately by Black people by the police?
Just a little detour back into this administration: If the way up is down, why are white Christians President Trump’s largest voting block when the President has continually shown us that he is engaged with the most un-Christian of activities like being hungry for power at the expense of people, misogyny, racism, adultery, bribery, fraud, and incessant lying to name a few.
If I am made in the image of God, then so are you. And so is that person on Facebook that keeps driving me nuts with their hypocrisy and inconsistency. For example, masks are a minor inconvenience that drastically reduces the spread of COVID-19, but I keep seeing stuff like this that makes me want to throw things. It’s a simple, harmless way to care about your neighbor (and yourself for that matter), and we seem to keep having arguments about people unwilling to do such a simple thing.
I don’t know how to get people to care about one another, but I’m pretty sure Jesus’ entire ministry was spent doing just that: to see how our lives - and the planet - are all intertwined together (what he repeatedly refers to as the Kingdom of God) and that we rise and fall together.
But if Jesus isn’t your thing, caring for others is woven throughout the Buddhists’ Eight Fold Path, caring for ourselves and others is foundational to Judaism, it is the third pillar of Islam, compassion is one of the Three Treasures of Taoism, Confucianism teaches that caring for one another is at the heart of being human, and Hindus and yogis teach the interdependence of all life and the value of service to one another. Studies show that atheists and agnostics are actually more motivated by compassion than religious practitioners.
Fires are raging along the West coast, another hurricane is flooding the Gulf states, we’re losing a 9/11 worth of Americans every 3ish days. If we aren’t heartbroken about the trauma going on all around us, what are we even doing? What is the point?
I don’t think it is necessary or healthy for us all to carry all of these heavy burdens, but I do think we all need to be asking ourselves the question of how we’re caring for each other - and use that as a barometer for our decisions. For most of us parents, we can double-down on teaching our children about the importance of compassion and looking out for the most marginalized people in our communities. Whether or not we have children at home, we can figure out what makes us sad or angry or passionate - and find ways to get involved in those specific areas. The climate emergency really gets my blood boiling, so I made calls to people running for local elections, in addition to my elected officials who aren’t running this year, this week asking them to take specific stands on climate change legislation and action. Small things add up to big things, and we have to start somewhere.
I don’t really have a tidy way to wrap up what has turned into a VERY depressing newsletter this week, but I have learned that if we don’t name what is going on, we have no hope of learning from it, let alone doing anything to alleviate the suffering all around us.
Quotable
“At least one of the purposes of church is to remind us that God has other children, easily as precious as we. Baptism and narcissism cancel each other out.” Leaving Church by Barbara Brown Taylor
Worth sharing this week
Elizabeth Gilbert warned us about the tough stuff ahead. Ed Yong (read everything he writes about the pandemic, even this piece from July 2018 when he predicts pretty perfectly the events we’re now living through) wrote about the pandemic spiral we’re stuck in. I’m a pretty optimistic person by nature, but I have also found that realistic expectations help me function better. So between these two things this week, I realized that I really need to double down on the tools in my self-care toolbox in order to survive the rough seasons we no doubt have ahead of us. How are you preparing now for the likely rougher months ahead? I hope the experts are wrong, but it can’t hurt to be better prepared.
As you can tell from reading to this point, I have been angry and sad this week (year?). When I feel the anger especially bubbling up in me, I turn to metta meditation. Metta is typically translated as loving-kindness, and it is one of the oldest Buddhist meditation practices. It has enormous benefits both individually and communally. Here are some of my favorite metta meditations online if you’re in need of some practice too: Sharon Salzberg, Tara Brach, Sarah Blondin, and Manoj Dias.
I think we’re all trying to figure out how to stay informed and witness to everything going on without it completely dragging us into the abyss. When I feel particularly angsty, I cut out all news and social media except for Heather Cox Richardson’s daily recaps. She is a historian who reports on the most important news of the day and puts it into context. If you’re not following her, you’re missing out on a free, daily education.
Seasonal pic of the week
I was in a Zoom meeting for work, but I kept hearing someone knock on the door but no one was at the door…only to finally figure out it was:
Cheers to trying to better care for yourself and your neighbor!
Sara