Autocracy. noun. 1. Government by a single person having unlimited power; despotism.
When I visit my friend Dania (not her real name), deep connection is in store. We sit in her kitchen, to an exquisitely prepared meal of homemade soup, salad, and bread with butter, and tea. We join hands for silence, then commence a discussion that ranges from intensely personal to spiritual/philosophical/universal. I have called Dania, who is decades older than me, my “elder.” But she feels as much a heart-sister as anyone. Though our life origins—birthplace, generations, geographies of residence and formation, and more—are mostly different, we share so much. Our educational backgrounds are similar. We both love books ideas gardens art family. We both treasure our spiritual paths.
So after a long silence between us as Dania traveled, I was eager to visit and hear her wisdom regarding the crises in our country. Dania has a gift for seeing the essence of what’s happening, stating matters plainly. Perhaps her decades of dedicated Buddhist practice underlie this gift. What she said last week has been reverberating ever since. As she put it, we are now living in a different country. Our president is breaking things rapidly and nothing seems to be stopping him. It will be some time before we begin to experience the turning. And the turning, when it comes, will be spiritual.
It was clarifying to hear Dania articulate the truth I know in my heart. And it has led to other thought-clarifications.
The rot at the root of MAGA is spiritual. The slogan itself, “America First,” reveals this. Imagine a full-grown adult saying “Me first; me first!” It is by turns laughable and sad. One imagines a petulant toddler or teenager. But this has become the vaunted rallying cry of the man-children (and some women-children) now at the helm of our country. These billionaires and their wanna-be’s want to take basic services and valued protections away from ordinary Americans to raise funds for a massive tax cut for the wealthy. It is all so simplistic. The reason we know “Me first/America first” to be immature and misguided is because, in interpersonal terms, we know that people need other people; that cooperation alone brings abundance; that living alone in one’s tower of fancy things where one is surrounded by yes-men, sycophants, and scared people instead of reciprocal love is a recipe for loneliness and emptiness, and a breeding ground for cruelty.
America—like a petulant toddler—will learn relatively quickly that breaking or straining ties with every last ally and partnering with other toddler-nations like Russia, while aiming to set up our own supply-chains where we alone manufacture every necessary widget and grow every food we consume (all the while taking over countries that have resources we need), will be about as productive as stealing all the toys and having no one to play with at the playground. It is no longer fun. It is no longer secure.
But I am afraid this is where we end up when we have determined spirituality is unnecessary. When we have determined that our lives are about amusing and enriching ourselves, either based on secular ideologies like hyper-capitalism or religious expressions pedaling “what God can do for you,” we naturally become petulant toddlers all about “me first!” Spirituality (and even atheists can have spirituality), is about nourishing the spirit as an alternative to solely nourishing the material and emotional demands of our egos.
The Turning
Someday a plurality of people in America will grow sick with our loneliness, hegemony, insecurity, and thin hopes. And I, like Dania, believe our hungering spirits will go looking for paths that lead us back to one another, to community. Back to something bigger than ourselves. Back to modalities that help us transcend ego and our cul-de-sacs of self-anaesthetizing lies.
Where I happen to experience spirit-nourishment is in practices that help me forget myself and my self-referential hungers. This happens when I’m looking into the eyes of one of my cats and petting them; when I’m embracing my husband, daughter or friends; when I’m outdoors noticing seasonal beauty (plum blossoms! daffodils!); when I’m listening to singer-songwriters as I make art; when I’m reading poetry; when I’m serving the cup during Eucharist at my church, or looking into peoples’ eyes as we grasp hands and ‘pass the peace’; when I’m sitting with Quakers at my husband’s Friends meeting, as I sometimes do—and seeing a community dedicated, in so many ways, to nurturing the spirit’s ability to transcend ego.
Honestly, I believe America is a long way from a collective turning. MAGA-cult adherents I know personally, who should be spiritual people, have been awash for so many years in an ideology of “me first!” that they will need to see the scenario play out before they grow sick of it. For several decades they have been told that the structures of communitarianism (taxes, institutions for the common good, peace and anti-arms treaties, national partnerships, etc.) are for suckers. They believe “morality” is only personal, never collective, so government should be all but dismantled. It is the height of immaturity, but they cannot see it yet. What will bring about a collective seeing, or a “turning”? Only a starvation of spirit, I’m afraid, that makes people want something more nourishing, more sustaining, than themselves and their wooly ideologies.
How do we survive the wait? I’m reminded of the old protest sign “Peace is the way.” Peace is not just the goal; peace is the way. It’s a pithy sign based on the MLK, Jr. quote “Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek; but a means by which we arrive at that goal.” Similarly, nourishing spirituality and working to live more for others and less for ourselves is not just the way to get to the end goal. It is living as if the goal is already here, and it is the means by which we will reach it.
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Wren, winner of a 2022 Independent Publishers Award Bronze Medal
Winner of the 2022 Independent Publisher Awards Bronze Medal for Regional Fiction; Finalist for the 2022 National Indie Excellence Awards. (2021) Paperback publication of Wren , a novel. “Insightful novel tackles questions of parenthood, marriage, and friendship with finesse and empathy … with striking descriptions of Oregon topography.” —Kirkus Reviews (2018) Audiobook publication of Wren.
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