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| ISSUE NO. 607 |
| THE EXHAUSTION WE FACE . . . in the outside world can lead to seeking ways to 'check out' instead of engage. This happens more and more as we grow accustomed to reacting to violent events, and bracing ourselves, or disengaging, in between. I keep thinking about the words of a Berkeley High School math teacher in a recent New York Times article on teachers' responses to school shootings across the United States: "What is wrong with us?" He was referring to the way that we continue to go about 'business as usual' as if we are not all impacted by preventable acts of terrorism. Sometimes it is frightening and uncomfortable to grieve as we need to grieve. The world around us seems to have endless messages of dismissal for talking about emotions - sadness, especially, but also anger, disillusion, uncertainty, despair, listlessness. The most prevalent one is some version of the idea that talking about these things makes them worse. Yet we know that talking about and addressing the things that plague us is one of the most healing ways to process them. As uncomfortable as it can be, it is equally confounding to think that we can go forward without recognizing that our mental and emotional health, our spiritual foundations, and our connections to one another, are being harmed. When that same math teacher canceled exams and ended his class early for the year, I recognized in his actions the need of a grieving person to stop the movement of life around him, in some small way, in order to process that there are things inside him that have stopped, and do not know how to go on. Barack Obama once said, "Justice grows out of recognition of ourselves in each other." It hurts to acknowledge that the children killed in Uvalde are our children. And the truth is that we are devastated. Depleted. Without words. These feelings are not a call to give up, or an excuse to check out, but a reminder to check in with yourself. In order to keep going with consciousness and clarity, you may need to stop or turn off something - the news feed, the car you're driving, the burner on the stove - for an uncertain amount of time. Even when things are stopped, we will still be here. Yours in food justice, |
tidbits...resources on anti-racism, environmentalism and food culture AKA stuff we're reading / listening to / watching / noticing / thinking about / captivated by this Tuesday . . . |
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