In Troubled Times: This, Too, Shall Pass

I started a blog series, “In Troubled Times” after the 2016 presidential election. Folks I trust said that things were going to get a lot worse before they got better. That’s true now, too. You can read the first installment, "Becoming Allies," here.

I came of age in the 1960s, demonstrating for civil rightsand marching against the Viet Nam War. I never burned my bra, but I volunteeredfor Planned Parenthood in the years before Roe v Wade. I am not bragging aboutmy activist bona fides. I was one of many, and rarely in the forefront.However, I remember all too well the feelings of both elation and futility. Theenergy and inspiration of being surrounded by thousands of like minds, fillingthe streets of San Francisco, chanting and singing. We thought that if we couldsing loudly enough and joyfully enough, we could change the minds and hearts ofthe nation’s leaders. And then came a day when many of us realized they werenot about to listen to us. The war raged on, now captured on television in ourliving rooms.

That feeling of powerlessness was one of the driving forcesbehind my debut science fiction novel, Jaydium, by the way. My heroineis initially trapped on a dusty, barely-habitable planet at the back end ofnowhere, and through a series of shifts through time and parallel dimensions,she ends up on an alien planet where she has the chance to change history bystopping a war. It’s about both re-engagement and the quest for peace (and Iwas tickled when Tom Easton of Analog praised the latter as unusual and laudable.)Writing it reflected my personal journey from withdrawal to participation.

I vividly remember how, in the late 1960s, my father, whowas born in 1907 and lived through two world wars, pogroms, the McCarthy witchhunts, and more, would talk me down from desperation. When I was in a panicabout the Cold War maneuver of the moment, he never dismissed my concerns; hewas just coming from a broader perspective. And he was right. We got throughthose years without blowing the planet up.

Now I find myself in the position of being an elder—a crone,if you will. My earliest political memories date from the mid-1950s, includingthe terror of HUAC, the pervasive suspicions, racism, misogyny, andantisemitism that no one questioned. When I was a bit older, the anti-communisthysteria had faded somewhat (depending on where you lived), but not the rest.And always, in the years before oral contraception, sex meant fear ofpregnancy. I knew girls in high school who got sent out of the country andreturned the following year or so without their babies. Later, in the late1960s/early 1970s but still before Roe v Wade, I volunteered at PlannedParenthood. And heard many stories. Looking back, I cannot believe how ignorantI was about so many other issues.

I do not mean to brag about my life experiences or to enterinto a contest of which times were worse. Each generation faces its own trials,and each generation is convinced that theirs are world-ending, worst-ever scenarios.This is one of many reasons why we need generational memory (not to mentionhistory books!)

Goethe wrote: “That which thy fathers have bequeathed tothee, earn it anew if thou wouldst possess it.” It’s horrible that we have tofight these battles over and over, playing eternal whack-a-mole with the agentsof hatred. That’s why we need all the allies and moral ammunition we can get.

I am mindful of the old joke, “In my day, we walked to school. Uphill.Both ways. In the snow.” I see no benefit in comparing one disaster to another.For the person affected by a catastrophic event, whether it’s an attack on themas a member of a vulnerable group or a purely personal tragedy, loss is loss,fear is fear, and grief is grief. Instead of belittling someone else’s pain, wehave the opportunity to use our own as a wellspring of compassion andunderstanding. The lesson from history is not that those times were more terriblethan those we face today. It’s that they passed. Sure, you might say, they weretaken over by new, awful things.

But sometimes, either by a cataclysmic change or the slowprogress of justice, things get better. Not all things, not for everybody, andnot all at once. Small victories add up to shifts in consciousness. One of myantidotes to despair is to complete the following sentence:

“I never thought I would live to see…”

 People walkon the Moon A Blackperson become PresidentSame-sex marriage become legalA woman Vice President

Now fill in your own.

I believe that many of the crises looming over us are reactionsto those victories. Two steps forward and one step back. But the movement ofhistory is on our side. Rights once gained are not easily (permanently)revoked. Once marginalized groups are accepted as deserving of respect anddignity, it’s a lot harder to take that away.

Right now there are many attempts to take away human rightsand dignity. And lives, often for trivial excuses. It seems we are living in atime when vicious, outrageous, hate-fueled behavior is on the ascendency.

These times, too, shall pass.

In the meantime, we are called upon to protect thevulnerable and minimize the harm inflicted on them.

 

Coming soon: My experience with nonviolent bystander interventiontraining