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Doing the Work


 

Friends, watching people cheer suffering is breaking me.  I have entered a new phase of doubting the world can go on.

And yet…and yet.

People are getting up today and going to work. Bookstores and libraries will be inviting us to read. Childcare workers will nurture children, restaurants will feed people, hospitals will treat the sick, and people will keep going to work.

Except the people who have no more jobs because of DOGE. Or those who have been kidnapped and disappeared by ICE. Or those who need to work but are afraid to leave their homes because of same.

People work in most cases because they must. And the more desperate they become (and/or the more ignorant) the more easily they will be conquered. Not by a foreign adversary but by native bigotry and greed. 

Because in desperation you have no choice.

Those of us who still have a sliver of choice are called to take on more. I’m moved by local examples and I suspect there are plenty we don’t see. 

People in our community are still planning Fourth of July parades and celebrations as though we still live in a normal world. No, more likely because they fiercely refuse to give up on the America that they believe in. 

I have no earthly idea how they are doing it. 

Here’s a lesson I have learned over the past week. I have always struggled to know how to help people because I didn’t feel my financial situation made it possible to do everything that was needed. I felt too small, too incapable, too helpless. Often I’d say I want to win a megamillions lottery so I could meet all those requests without limit.

But here’s the thing.

Since the ceiling in our home fell in and we were displaced so many people have reached out to help us and not a one of them was a large jackpot lottery winner. I don’t know if they wonder if they are too small, too incapable, or too helpless but I do know that they didn’t let that stop them from taking action.

From large offers of help to small gifts - - all were acts of love and all were so valuable to us.

Somehow I feel that the first part of this blog post and the second are connected. I’m trying to make that connection for myself.


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