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Photo by Frank Cone
- The first day is hard, the second, unexpectedly, harder. It’s the coming to terms when you’ve lost something dear, when reality seeps in, and down, and the dark stain finds its way even onto the secret slivers of light you’ve sequestered somewhere.I stare at a blank page, hoping something sensible will find its way into words. The cursor blinks.
In the void, blame comes too easily. If I pinpoint a cause for my distress, can I make it stop? There are plenty of available targets, and I want to fling my fear-fueled anger onto them, bury them with my disillusionment until they choke.
And yet, everything about my inclination to take sides goes against a stronger instinct to look for common ground. When I replace nameless, faceless people with those whose stories I have the privilege to know, or with whom I share the briefest of smiles, everything softens. Hostility loses power. Hope brightens.
This is what I have to come back to. This is what I have to do, again.
Someone bemoans the cost of medication, points to a president, to a pair of presidents. I say I think the price of prescriptions is way bigger than any administration, and the person agrees, backing off their soap box.
Someone expresses concern for the growing strength of other countries and wonders who will prove a better leader if another global war erupts. We talk about motives, ethics, and the danger of trusting social media. We don’t agree with each other, but our conversation is civil.
Someone in class whose name I don’t know hands me cash after I announce a collection for the food pantry. Just like that. Just hands money over to me, no questions asked.
Someone in Walmart, walking the length of the aisle where I’m looking for peanut butter in glass jars, wishes every person well. At the far end, a worker stocking shelves strikes up conversation.
Someone delivers soup. Someone turns off the news. Someone searches for a lost elder who has wandered away from home. Someone works endless hours in a volunteer relief center. Someone makes amends. Someone stops to listen. Really listen. Someone hears. Someone goes on singing.
I struggle to put my faith in systems that have consistently elevated power and greed at the expense of everything else. But I trust the feeling that emerges when I stop fretting for enough minutes in a row to attend to my heart. Somehow, it says, we will find our way. Our children and their children will find their way. Somehow it will have to be enough to go on caring for each other, carrying each other, through it all.
This is what we do now. And when we can, we do more.
Danusha Lameris, New York Times, September 19, 2019
Elizabeth Beggins is a communications and outreach specialist focused on regional agriculture. She is a former farmer, recovering sailor, and committed over-thinker who appreciates opportunities to kindle conversation and invite connection. On “Chicken Scratch,” a reader-supported digital publication hosted by Substack, she writes non-fiction essays rooted in optimism. To receive her weekly posts and support her work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber here.
Linda Cades says
I support everything Ms. Beggins says about taking care of each other and doing what each of us can, in our own small way, to make life better or at least a little less difficult for others whether we agree with them or not. I hope she is right when she says ” Somehow…we will find our way. Our children and their children will find their way. Somehow it will have to be enough to go on caring for each other, carrying each other, through it all.” We know our nation has gone through difficult times before and come through.
That said, right now, each of us must do what we can to oppose policies that are hurting our families, friends and neighbors. We have to do more than hope, and that means speaking up. Last week our government was, in effect ordered to come to a halt. Federal workers have been left to wonder if they are allowed to do their jobs or not. Those federal workers all do things on which all of us depend. They make sure your social security check comes, that meals on wheels can deliver food to elderly shut-ins, that our air, water and food are safe. On Tuesday, the people who care for my disabled son were unable to access the portal that allows them to pay their staff. My brother-in-law is a cancer researcher who works on grants awarded by NIH. They were told to stop doing what they do and prohibited from even communicating about what they are working on. If people like him cannot do their research, people who might be saved from cancer or other life-threatening diseases won’t have what they need to stay alive. Someone needs to be keeping an eye on bird flu.
Although the shutdown memo said the executive order would not affect individual people, it does. Please write or call your representatives in Congress and ask them to make sure our government is still functioning. Last week, Senator Van Hollen sent an email asking his constituents to submit stories about how what is going on in Washington is affecting them. Here is the link: https://www.vanhollen.senate.gov/share-how-president-trumps-executive-orders-are-impacting-you-or-your-family Take a few minutes to tell Senator Van Hollen what is happening to your family, friends and neighbors.
We can only solve these problems by working together.
Elizabeth Beggins says
Ms. Cades, I hope I’m right, too, and I recognize that there is a level of privilege in even having the opportunity to think about what comes next. So many aren’t sure how they’re going to get through tomorrow. Our country’s history has much to teach, if we let it, and that’s another place we can engage, to remind ourselves where we’ve been, and where we’ve almost ended up. I agree that it’s important for any of us who can to do what we can. Thanks for sharing the link to Van Hollen’s call for stories, and for sharing your thoughts here.
Kent Robertson says
Ms Begins, although we are just getting underway, I would like to invite you and others who mourn the loss of civility in public discourse to join a new group in Talbot County that we are calling Finding Common Ground Eastern Shore. We hope to raise awareness of the damage that polarization is causing to our government, our friendships, and our families. We want to help people to learn how to discuss politics civilly again, find and build on common goals, and find solutions with which the majority can live comfortably. A primer on the Constitution and the Federalist Papers will be followed by a series on the dangers and causes of, and solutions to polarization. Then an ongoing series of open, civil debates by professors, politicians, and/or other experts about the issues we are dealing with as a society.
Please contact us at:
[email protected]
Our Facebook page is brand new and not far along yet. Search for Finding Common Ground (Eastern Shore)
Elizabeth Beggins says
Thank you for this work and for sharing about it here. Much appreciated!
Darrell parsons says
Yes. The “true dwelling of the holy”.
Elizabeth Beggins says
It so often seems so to me, Darrell. Thank you.
Louise Perry says
Thank you. It’s important to read pieces like yours. We look for signs of hope wherever we can find them.
Elizabeth Beggins says
Ms. Perry, I think hope is vital. It won’t bring us the solutions we need. That requires collective engagement, curiosity, a willingness to look for common ground, work. But without hope, we can’t even begin. Thanks so much for offering your thoughts here.
James Siegman says
Beautiful article. The little things matter!!!!!! Keep it up. And if you read this today, pass it on…the article and/or its sentiments.