Beyond Despair: Finding Our Ground in a Shifting Democracy

Lately I’ve been sensing a certain despair that seems to hang in the air, even among those people who are pushing out positive and hopeful energy and engaging in constructive action to combat threats to Democracy. A friend of mine and I recently engaged in a conversation about the word “despair”, and we spoke of helplessness, discouragement, overwhelmed, inertia. Insert your own.

“Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine” (Wild Geese by Mary Oliver)

And the other day I read Timothy Snyder’s latest post found here:

Evil At Your Door

“Individuals associated with the federal government have, in defiance of a court order and without a trial or any form of due process, deported hundreds of people from the territory of the United States to El Salvador, where they will be held indefinitely in a concentration camp.”

I read this while I sit in a town where this type of constitutional illegality has not yet impacted any individuals in this community…that I know of…but who knows?

“White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, in a statement Sunday, responded to speculation about whether the administration was flouting court orders: “The administration did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order. The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA aliens (Tren de Aragua gang, which Trump targeted in his unusual proclamation that was released Saturday) had already been removed from U.S. territory.” (AP World News)

“U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg issued an order Saturday temporarily blocking the deportations, but lawyers told him there were already two planes with immigrants in the air — one headed for El Salvador, the other for Honduras” (AP World News)

How intrusive to our daily lives do these actions need to be before we are motivated sufficiently to speak out…to, in effect, feel the despair that those who were deported must feel. Or the despair of immigrants (citizens or not) who may well be wondering about the next knock on their door. But let’s be clear, we do not know the actual status, nor group affiliations, nor even the names of those deported. What is clear is that a slight of hand - a manipulation of the law - enabled the round up, boarding, and flight take-off to occur before any judge could act to block the order.

Or consider the despair of returning to what was once your home and finding only rubble - maybe it was war, maybe it was fire, maybe it was flood that destroyed your stability. A terrible reminder of the impermanence of our temporal world.

What does a despairing nation look like? How is it manifested? Helplessness, discouragement, overwhelmed, inertia, withdrawal, denial? Despair is a wasteland - where a people have not resolved their history, and they fear the future. It is not a place to live. It is a space with no air. But it is a place to start again. Recognize despair as part of a cycle that if acknowledged will show a way out from the wasteland to fertile ground – to available ground. When in despair remember in the words of A.R. Ammons “Firm ground is not available ground.” (Dunes, 1972)

Taking root in windy sand

is not an easy

way

to go about

finding a place to stay.

A ditchbank or wood's-edge

has firmer ground.

In a loose world though

something can be started—

a root touch water,

a tip break sand—

Mounds from that can rise

on held mounds,

a gesture of building, keeping,

a trapping

into shape.

Firm ground is not available ground.

So, I am looking for available ground now, looking for signs of life in the despair of rubble. Please join me. Do not direct your energy or attention against that which drains the world. Give your energy only to what you want the world to be.

And lend your voices only

To sounds of freedom

No longer lend your strength

To that which you wish

To be free from

Fill your lives

With love and bravery

And you shall lead

A life uncommon

Jewel (from Life Uncommon, 1998)

By Susan Wright, Democracy Is Us Board and Council Member