Waking up

When asked why her fiction contains so many grotesque characters, Flannery O'Connor said, "To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures."

That line comes to mind every time I see Trump.  Did somebody send him to wake us all up?

From the outset of his campaign, this paternalistic, bullying man has shocked me out of my complacency.   A "large and startling figure," he's a caricature of every patronizing authority figure I've ever known, a reminder of what it felt like, once upon a time, to be disempowered and treated like a child.

When he held up his hand and said, "Don't worry about the tough calls I have to make, I'll take care of it, you don't need to know," every cell of my psyche went into a rage.  Are we back in the days of "Father Knows Best" or what?

Don't tell me what to worry about! I will never trust you to tell us what matters, you whose "prayer" at last week's "prayer breakfast" had to do with some ridiculous reality show.  If I hear you talk about the size of your parts, or your crowds, or your claim that "God stopped the rain" for your pathetic inaugural speech,  I'm going to throw all my kombucha bottles at my TV screen and smash it.  

Trump's brand of narcissism,  along with smallness of vocabulary and heart, along with "alternate facts" and outright lies, could destroy us all if we don't talk back, throw bottles, make signs, and speak back to warped power.  It's not okay for men to decide what women do with their own bodies and minds.

Thank goodness for the scores of writers and people who are saying the same things, way more brilliantly than I am.  Thank goodness for those who resist having the truth framed and finessed by a power monger.  Thank goodness for the thousands of women marching against injustice for themselves and their sisters and brothers on Mother Earth, women who are willing to "crack the world open" with truth.

And yet, had the election gone the other way, would we have woken up?  Or would we have continued to trust the political machine to "take care of things" and tell us "the truth"?  I probably would have continued in complacency and silence.  I'm happy that countless people are speaking back to power in the wrong hands, no matter the size of those hands.

Among my many teachers in the world are Leonard Cohen, Flannery O'Connor, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, David Whyte, Mary Oliver....The list could fill pages.  David Whyte said, "Anyone or anything that doesn't bring you to life is too small for you."

The stakes are too high to stay small.  The stakes are too high to stay silent. Too high to look the other way, cover our eyes, or pretend that what we're hearing is not outrageous.  A man who disparages immigrants, women, disabled people, and anyone else who "doesn't like him" is way too small to be at the helm of a country.

A Republican congressman who lost his election is speaking out against Trump.  "Why don't your Republican colleagues speak out like you?" an interviewer asked him.  "Because," he said, "They know that Trump can destroy their careers with one Tweet."

In an article in The Sun this month, Krista Bremer wrote, "I am done trusting someone else to get things done.  There is no one wise or compassionate enough to restore my sense of security.  All I can offer now in the face of uncertainty are my attempts to pay attention, to resist complacency, and to find ways to give more and love better."