Suffering Is My Superpower
Finite Capacity is my kryptonite - awareness is a help, so is making art.
I am overwhelmed, and no doubt, you are as well.
We are being lied to by the government. We are being gaslighted by some in the media. Trump is not seeking to ‘reshape the government’ as I read in the NYT — he is destroying it. His regime seeks to erase the rule of law, due process, court rulings, the balance of power, and all of what we’ve counted on all our lives. Musk, DOGE and the minions are stealing our data, consolidating it, and endangering all of us in ways I can hardly even imagine.
I’m spending a lot of time waving signs at passing cars, and I am worried now if milk is safe to drink.
And
At the same time, we’re heading into summer, days are long and warm and there seems to be a lot of day-to-day business as usual and seasonal beauty.
I can’t make it make sense — because it does not make any sense. But it is real. What is slightly different is that I am aware of all this and aware that it makes no sense and aware of all the suffering. I feel my suffering in my synapses. I feel encased by everyone else’s. I feel the suffering in my fascia. I feel it as an ache in my bones. I feel overwhelmed. Yet much of my routine is unchanged. Again, it does not make sense.
This is different than the pandemic. Americans, if we can generalize everyone into one group, are suffering from self-inflicted wounds. I got to thinking about how — when I get in a bad way — many of my own problems are also self inflicted. I don’t know if that helps anything. But I think it’s true. Right now, Americans in congress could stop this.
A long time ago I taught in an Episcopal school in NYC. We had chapel in the mornings and usually a lesson. We’d sing a hymn or two as well, usually ones good for kids. We sang Lift Every Voice and Sing quite often. Much later I found out how important this song is. It’s often referred to as the Black National Anthem — it’s about freedom from oppression.
Our rector was sometimes very enlightening in the way he interrupted scripture. He talked about Jesus turning the other cheek and said, no, he didn’t just want to get hit on the other side of his face. What he did was change direction. He hit a wall and said to himself, “This isn’t working, I’ll do something different.” He turned and found a new direction.
Clearly this regime has hit a wall and we have to do something different. We’ve been hit. It’s up to us to change our direction.
We have to participate in our own government. Call and write elected officals, local, state and national. Speak out to anyone who will listen. Attend local meetings. Democracy is an action word.
We have to be in the streets. We have to do it again, and again, until there are enough of us to change the direction. To be inert is to be complicit in making the self-inflicted wounds deeper and more deadly.
And yet despite everything, I am still making art. I can’t suffer all the time. I just don’t have the capacity to absorb it all. Making art expands my awareness and capacity.
And I am getting the garden put in so we can have far too many zucchinis in August. Not a bad problem to have.
Change is consistent. Change is constant. Change is our companion.
But I remain now, as always,
Ann
May 12, 2025
Please hit the heart and leave a comment on how you are dealing with all of this non-sense.
Lift Every Voice and Sing
Song by J. Rosamond Johnson and James Weldon Johnson
Lift every voice and sing,
'Til earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on 'til victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place For which our fathers died.
We have come, over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
'Til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.[38]
If you havn’t heard this, please find a recording (lots on YouTube) of someone singing this. I can hear it in my head even after all this time. It’s rolls like the sea!