How are you doing? For real?
I am stressed. I get up each day and try to comprehend the fresh hell that is greeting me in the headlines. I don’t know about you, but it feels to me sort of like the pandemic again- things are bad in this country and I wonder when the tide will turn. I am concerned about due process, the rule of law, the hate for the immigrant and the loss of constitutional separation of powers. For starters.
I am also stressed about the state of our planet and the never ending piles of clothes that are filling up our landfills, and why we keep buying new cheap clothing, and why garment workers are unsafe and living in communities with polluted water.
I sometimes feel like I should put the environmental issue out of my mind while I am trying to wrap my head around the constitutional one.
But we can address both issues at the same time. No further bandwidth needed, because the approach is the same. I have to keep reminding myself of this.
The urgency of this constitutional moment and our response to it does not mean that other pressing matters, like our planet, should take a back seat. Strengthening our connections with people around us help both causes. All causes. Organizing to defend our constitution will put us in a place to defend our environment, and vice versa. Leaning into our civic duty to be involved, informed, and a presence in our community will bring us together on issues we all care about.
We all want representation that responds to what we value, like due process and clean water. We all want to be able to speak freely about our concerns and debate in a healthy exchange that sharpens the complex problems we face into focus. Why? So we are able to work with one another to solve them. And we ALL need to address the safety of the immigrant. We need to address the safety of the garment worker. We need to care about the poor, the homeless, and those who need our help. Why? Because they are people. We are all the same, aren't we?
I am challenging myself to widen the scope of my own community. I need to learn about the concerns of my neighbors, and get their take on how to approach the problems they care about. I need to connect with more people, in person. This is happening at Second Serve as well! We have a Sewing Circle now that has brought a growing group of people together to mend and repair and get to know one another. These kinds of connections put us in a position of strength, collectively, to tackle problems because they are our problems.
We have the empathy and compassion to attend to our present state of affairs. We have the generosity of spirit to help those outside our family and our own circle. We are a talented and tough people who know how to stand up to oppression, to face complex problems, and join together in common cause.
Not for nothing it’s how this country started.
So I will invest in the people around me for our collective good; this is my current plan. Having a plan decreases the stress. I think it can be joyful even!
Join me!
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