About That New World...

Notes from the Land of Devastation

Well. In my last installment, I was bemoaning the hateful and dangerous rhetoric of a certain campaign. But I still had hope that we’d be able to harness all the best within ourselves and avoid another term (or endless terms, as the case may be). Now that hope is dashed.

I went to bed on election night knowing that it did not look good. The needle on the New York Times website gave me a terrible sense of 2016 deja vu. When I get up at 6:00 every morning with the children, I pray through my thoughts and feelings for an hour before looking at my phone. That’s what I did the morning after the election. I knew it wasn’t good news that awaited me.

On Wednesday I opened a space for grieving on my Instagram, and hundreds of people showed up and shared their deepest sorrow, fear, and anger. It was a gift to be together. And an honor to facilitate a space of safety for our devastation.

I’m working on something hopeful, but I’m not quite there yet. I’m waiting for the words. They will come. First we grieve. Then we act. (And this state of affairs will absolutely require our vigilant and dedicated attention and action.)

But I wanted to reach out to you today for this reason: today is Dorothy Day’s birthday. I recommend her as a perennial comfort to all who are grieving. I spent the summer reading her diaries, and now I am reading her letters.

In her column for the Catholic Worker newspaper, she once explained why that mode of communication was so important to her.

“Writing is an act of community. It is a letter, it is comforting, consoling, helping, advising on our part, as well as asking it on yours. It is a part of our human association with each other. It is an expression of our love and concern for each other.”

And so I go on writing, hoping the words on the screen will help you, and me, feel a little bit less alone. Dostoevsky said, and Dorothy often repeated, that beauty will save the world. Dostoevsky knew from suffering, and I trust him deeply, but I’m not sure beauty alone will do it. I think maybe it’s our capacity to be moved by beauty—in the world around us, in each other—that will restore us to our full humanity. And it’s our full humanity that’s needed for saving the world, or at least doing our very best to minimize the hurt and damage caused by another iteration of this administration.

Please take care of yourself. Please be assured that you are not alone. And please carry on your good work.

A Few Hopeful Things:

—In the interest of shoring ourselves up with beauty, my good friend John Dougherty sent me this gorgeous photo from his retreat. I keep looking at it again and again and visualizing all of us continuing on our paths.

—I found Nathan’s Substack post about remaining human really comforting. I don’t have any tattoos and probably never will, but if I ever got inked, “Nothing human is alien to me” would be a real contender. Marina’s thoughtful post about the texture of grief was really helpful too.

—Not exactly hopeful, but…I wrote a review of Anna Kendrick’s film “Woman of the Hour” before the election, and it just went up today. It feels…worse now. But I’m grateful for everything that this film articulates so well.

—This morning someone asked me if I would facilitate a spiritual gathering series on Zoom for the bereft. No details on that yet, but let me know if you are interested, and I’ll keep you posted.

In grief, in not-yet hope with you,
Cameron