If ever

It's a clear morning and the air is cool. The temperature sits at 57 degrees fahrenheit. Today is Sunday.

If ever there was a time when the essential practice to extend love and compassion was needed, now is that time. Of course, "now" is all of it; and there are too many distractions to keep us from remembering this is when it matters.

Watching the rhetoric and analyses on all sides in connection with a momentus collective decision for the country (perhaps the world) has been a real-time lesson on how far we have come from the stories about the great potential of this nation. In listening to the one who wants to be the designated "leader" - and more importantly, in seeing the rapt looks on the faces of those who were in the audience cheering this person on - it was hard not to feel very sad, scared, and deeply suspicious about where politics has led this society.

While we may not want to participate, we must. While it may be unclear as to how best to use the time and energy we have, we need to figure out our place in all of this mess. What is not an option is to ignore the tragic consequence of inaction. But before making a move, it is important to deeply reflect on what we want to see, where each of our talents can be best put to use, where past decisions have placed us at this moment so we know what can and should be done for our part in all of this.

Young energy is inspiring these days, they are the ones who will need the support of elders who have walked down this path before and they are the ones who will find the right places to turn off the road taken so far. There must be other avenues and those may be revealed only after there is a chance for digesting all that has come before this moment. The look of being entranced by the rhetoric of the group that has decided to disappear immigrants, to drive down wages without driving down the cost of living a decent life in this country, and to create more disincentives to become educated is enough inspiration for action now.

Whether it is in the conversations at home, in organizing activities that bring communities together, in worship spaces, in the arts, in teaching (at all levels, and in all spaces), it is time to reinforce the capacity to listen, to trust the instinct to help rather than harm, and to practice the art of peace instead of war. This is much harder to do in a time when anxiety is high, and fearlessness has been forgotten as an asset rather than just a word that you hear in seminars on how to be a leader.

Political leaders who care about the vast majority of people in this nation have not failed due to wrong intentions. Instead, it seems they have failed out of a lack of capacity to step outside the conventions (literal and figurative) and have fully endorsed through their actions, the energy of the structures and institutions that were built by the very forces that saw only material well-being and forgot the rest of the picture.

What is one to do? Start with sincere, deep reflection on what your role can be at this moment. If ever there was a time for this, it's now.