Compression
The day began with grey skies moving in after a week of sunshine. The temperature dropped just a bit at 54 degrees fahrenheit as the sun rose. Today is Wednesday.
Writing has been difficult for several days. Maybe weeks? It is the energy of the world, the energy at home, and the energy in community. Strange to have the ability to move from urban to forest, from ocean to mountain - that's how it is in today's world - one can enter physical spaces that are lush one moment and then charred the next - accidents.
That's what happened this week. Big accident.
The accident involved all of what Los Angeles offers. Migrant workers set up in businesses under the freeway overpass. City bureaucracies that could not possibly focus on unseemly contractual relationships that brought clever entrepreneurs the ability to negotiate favorable public contract terms and then turn around and charge poor working class craftspeople the chance to make a living - mechanics and auto workers, mostly. Life close to the underground goes unchecked.
It's like the compression of time, of people, of activities, of cultures, and all of what our contemporary lives have to offer - has finally brought things to yet another breaking point. The break points are increasing in number as the fact of the unhoused worsens, as our choices as a society have narrowed into leaving people without access to basic health care, and as those who want to serve find that the work is so overwhelming that the idea of rest is out of the question. The needs are not abating even as more funds are raised, more education about the conditions we face expands, and theories of organizing keep emerging.
What does all of this mean?
Maybe it means it is time to go back to basics. The basics are hard to explain in today's world. These include slowing everything down – movement, to-do lists, breath. Also, remembering so that the future can be held more closely and felt more deeply. The remembering of both the achievement following hard work; and the disappointment following hard work. And finally, giving thanks - being truly grateful for all that life has shown us so that we might have the chance to leave this world with far fewer regrets. These are basic things.
As a newly arrived elder, it seems my most important work is in connecting with people, listening to their stories, seeing them without the trappings of titles, credentials, and other tickets to legitimacy in today's world. Just seeing them and letting them share the temple space so that we might discover again, our most precious gift - in knowing one another.
If we could do all of this, how could bombs and raids happen? If we just stopped allowing life to continue to compress us into spaces, mind numbing choices, and too many things to do to survive – perhaps there might be a way to find one another and simply visit.