Driving Out Darkness

The shootings Sunday in a Sikh gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, have affected me very much as they have affected others. I am sad, shocked, stricken. Coming so soon on the heels of the shootings in Aurora, Colorado, it's hard not to feel that hate and violence have gained the upper hand.

About the same time I heard about the shootings in Oak Creek, I found myself on the receiving end of some nasty vitriol. This happens from time to time when you're very fat, as I am. Many people believe it's possible—and obligatory—for all of us who are larger than average to better conform to the norm. In my experience, in this body I live in, I have not found it possible for longer than a year or so.

My many determined attempts earlier in my life to lose weight always ended in misery, with me gaining back all the weight I lost, and then another 25 percent besides, at which point I hated myself and my body more than ever. I have come to accept, though, that my body is more determined to save me from starvation than I could ever be to whittle it down to a socially acceptable size on a long-term basis.

After a long and tortuous journey, I have come to love and respect the body I live in, to honor what my body and I have been through together, to reject the ubiquitous pressure to be other than I am. That doesn't mean I've given up. Quite the contrary. It means that my relationship with my body is on much friendlier terms and I am free to care for it in the ways that work best for me. I also believe that my relationship with my body is my business alone. I am under no obligation to explain or apologize for my size. The judgments of others are not my problem unless I allow them to be.

But every now and then, judgment and hate come from an unexpected quarter, from someone I consider an ally, a fellow traveler. This happened Sunday on Facebook. Every time this sort of thing occurs, I have to shore myself up, give myself a good talking to, and actively resist colluding in the judgment of the hater.

Coming from someone I had thought a friend, the hate was very hard to take. I was hurt, and I took it personally. I had expressed my objection to a photo making the rounds that showed a very fat person sitting on a flimsy chair. That photo, taken from the back and not showing the person's head, is in itself designed to dehumanize and objectify the person. In the photo, "Chick-fil-A" had been photoshopped onto the back of the chair, and the text said "Welcome to Chick-fil-A, where being obese is 'genetic' but being gay is a 'lifestyle choice.'"

I felt I had to respond, because in such instances silence is the same as giving assent. I couldn't, in good conscience, do that. I registered my objection by posting a link to a Jezebel article by Lindy West, "I Know You're Mad at Chick-fil-A, but Stop Taking It Out on Fat People," that very articulately raises the same points I wanted to make. I never expected the venomous response I got. I pointed out that the hater was talking about me personally. And I tried to make sure that he had read the most salient part of the article:

We live in a culture where bullying is both socially acceptable and state-sanctioned. And it's that fucked-up aspect of our culture that makes Chick-Fil-A's anti-gay bullying a legitimate political stance rather than just the ramblings of some wacko fringe pariah. Our permissiveness around bullying is what's fueling this entire "debate." So to fight those bullies with bullying of our own isn't just counterintuitive—it contributes directly to the climate that keeps bigots like Chick-Fil-A above water.

Alas, not much of that sunk in, and after a couple more hateful exchanges, I gave up. I just couldn't subject myself to any more of it.

But I have a dear friend who also spoke up. I had reacted defensively, as though the entire conversation was really all about me. But my friend was more understanding. She engaged him further, and ultimately he admitted that his hatred was really directed at himself and his own body. He had lost some weight; he had hated himself when he was heavier. He felt justified in his hate.

What a revelation this was to me. First, given my personal vulnerability, I am so grateful that I didn't wade into these perilous waters alone. Second, my friend was able to practice kindness when I was not. Her persistence was a gift to me. Whereas before I had felt only horror, after I read what the hater said about hating himself when he was fat, I understood that the conversation had very little to do with me.


Thus my friend handed me the only really effective means of driving out the darkness of hate: forgiveness. In fact, when I understood what was really going on, I realized that forgiving this hater was no different from forgiving my former fat-loathing self. It took me a long, long time to be able to love myself the way I am. Perhaps it will take this hater as long or longer. I can only wish him well on his journey.

Perhaps hate always involves our feelings about ourselves—fears, insecurities, perceived inadequacies. In understanding this, I came to feel compassion for the hater, and I felt free to love him and forgive him and wish him well. I consider him a fellow traveler now more than I did before. He may not consider me the same, but it doesn't matter. I have my weapon—forgiveness—and I will wield it as ruthlessly as I'm able to drive out both the darkness within and the darkness without.

I'm not altogether sure how to wield it where the shootings in Oak Creek are concerned, but certainly the shooter's act was motivated by hate. And certainly at some point in processing what has happened, forgiveness will or can be a force for healing. We must counter hate as best we can in all its guises—the gross, horrific ones and the small, sad ones, both of which I experienced on Sunday.

Certainly our impulses toward solidarity and support that cross the barriers that usually divide us must be nurtured and encouraged as expressions of the imperative need for love to triumph over hate. The lessons we learn as we strive for healing must be shared and remembered and emblazoned on our hearts.


For my part, I will think twice when next I personally encounter hate. I will think about what it is in the hater's life that drives them and binds them. I will seek to forgive and to understand as best I can. I hope I will remember that they are not really all that different from me, and that the worst of their hatred is directed inward.

At the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1957, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a sermon on loving our enemies. He wrote it while in jail during the Montgomery bus boycott. It's well worth taking the time to read the whole thing—it's not that long—but here's the most powerful part:

To our most bitter opponents we say: "We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. ... Throw us in jail and we shall still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. ... We will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process and our victory will be a double victory."

# # #Many thanks to the Overpass Light Brigade for the "Practice Peace" photo.

Ten Years Later: A Prayer for Peace

Ten years ago today, I woke up at 9am central time thinking I heard someone crying.

A little later I went to Borders, and I heard the barista in the cafe talking with a person ahead of me in line. I could tell from their tone and the snatches I heard that something terrible had happened, and I knew I didn't want to hear it from some stranger at Borders, because then I would remember what that person said for the rest of my life.

So I just left and drove home, listening with horror to the radio. The whole time I was driving home I was crying and yelling "Not with that bastard in the White House!" I knew that W's response would be more disastrous than those acts of terrorism. And it was. And it still is.

Ten years later we are still at war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our civil liberties are on life support. We can't fly anywhere (unless we're wealthy enough to own our own airplane) without either having naked pictures taken of our bodies or being groped by a complete stranger. We are less safe, in spite of the security theater that plays out daily in airports and malls. We are more afraid, we are more hateful, we are more hostile. Our collective wounds have not healed; they have only festered.

I pray for peace and healing for all who suffered so intensely ten years ago. I pray we find ourselves again. I pray we learn that hate begets only more hate. I pray we become a people of compassion rather than aggression, of understanding rather than ignorance, of quiet courage rather than noisy alarm. I pray we would end our wars and begin studying and practicing peace. I pray we would reclaim our civil liberties and defend human rights rather than subverting and undermining them. I pray that we would again abhor torture rather than celebrating and defending it. I pray that we would come to appreciate peoples and cultures who are different from us, rather than fearing and maligning them. I pray for peace and healing for all those who have suffered grief and loss in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The U.S. response to the 9/11 attacks gave Al Qaeda exactly what it wanted: war. Ten years ago the United States had the sympathy and good will of much of the world. Instead of making the most of the opportunity that presented, we squandered it and launched ourselves into a decade of military aggression. Ten years is a very, very long time to be at war. Our volunteer troops are exhausted and haunted by all they have had to see and do.

Ten years is more than enough. It's time to wage peace.

The Singular and Extraordinary Path of Nonviolence

Dr. King walked the not-always-popular and not-always-well-understood path of nonviolence.

Nonviolence is extraordinarily effective in demonstrating the rightness of one's cause. When the British attacked the nonviolent resistors in India, it was evident to the world that the resistors, many of whom lost their lives, were in the right and that the British were in the wrong. When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus, it was clear that her cause was just.

Nonviolent resistance requires the willingness to lay down one's own life for the sake of the cause, so it better be a damn good one. You don't make this kind of commitment to something that's marginally important.

Violence debases us. Nonviolence elevates us.

Violence strips both the perpetrator and the victim of human dignity.

Nonviolent resistance clothes the oppressed with dignity and enables them to view the oppressor with compassion.

Nonviolent resistance empowers the oppressed.

Violence begets only more violence.

Nonviolence begets understanding and empathy.

We need more nonviolent resistors of hate in the world today.

For my part, I commit myself to a path of nonviolence and compassion. Care to join me?

--Mary

Thank you, Dubya

There is one thing, and only one thing, that I'm grateful to George W. Bush for: my new sense of political engagement.

For most of my adult life, I have not been especially politically inclined. I thought politics was boring and that it didn't really affect me, and that nothing was as certain or as enduring as the pretty-much-okay status quo. I thought that American freedom was just a fact of life. I thought civil rights were a part of the scenery and as enduring as Mount McKinley. I never thought about the "Rule of Law" and thought the Constitution was an important historical document.

It wasn't until the 2000 election that I began really paying attention to the political arena. I was appalled at how the electoral college and the Supreme Court handed the presidency to the candidate who lost the election, at how the Florida recount was subverted. I felt an enormous sense of betrayal and a longing to live in a democracy where the will of the people was honored and respected.

On September 11, 2001, I was in a bookstore when I heard people talking the way they do when a great horror is unfolding. I decided I didn't want to hear about it from a stranger, so I dropped everything and went home to watch the news. All the way home, I kept saying to myself, over and over again: "Not while that guy is in office, not while that guy is in office." I didn't know yet what had happened, but I knew that Dubya would make whatever it was much worse. Talk about a prescient moment.

I had read enough to be firm in the belief that Dubya and the neocons would exploit the situation to accrue more power, to advance their antigovernment ideology, to twist the very foundations of the republic. I can't imagine a more horrific response to that national tragedy than the one we have witnessed these past seven years.

Under this president we were deceived into a preemptive war that many knew would turn into an unwinnable quagmire. We've seen the abandonment of habeas corpus, the introduction of torture and extraordinary rendition, unprecedented government secrecy, unwarranted surveillance of American citizens, the undermining of our government's checks and balances, and a "unitary president" who clearly considered himself to be above the law. The list goes on and on. The disasters that have befallen us during Dubya's term in office—9/11, Katrina, the collapse of the economy—are nothing compared to the disaster that his reign has been.

Thanks to Dubya, I now know the importance of the Rule of Law. I know that tyrants count on people not paying attention. I know what the founders of this country knew: that tryanny is always a threat and must always be guarded against.

Thanks to Dubya, I know that the Constitution is a precious gift, not only to the people of the United States but to the people of the world, and that it must be defended by all people who want future generations and people around the world to enjoy the rights and freedoms I used to take for granted.

Dubya taught me that what the ACLU says is true: freedom can't protect itself. U.S. citizens who love truth, justice, freedom, and peace have an obligation to pay attention, to engage, and to actively defend the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Rule of Law.

Thanks to Dubya, I've learned that we can't afford to just leave this up to the people who like politics.

My hopefulness about the incoming administration is tempered by my understanding of how horribly our government has been mangled in the last eight years.

I know that the office of the presidency now holds far more power than the wise founders of this country ever intended. I know that power like that is too much for any one human being to safely wield, regardless of how good or noble that person's intentions.

I still fear for the life and well-being of my beleaguered country. We're a long, long way from restoring the republic that I so foolishly thought would endure without my ever having to exert any effort to defend it.

I feel a lot like we're picking through the rubble of the last eight years, that the great virtues extolled and established and written into the Constitution by our revolutionary founders have suffered terribly from a sustained all-out assault. We're covered in dust and debris, wounded and disoriented, with only a vague sense of who we are and who we are meant to be.

I will celebrate this week along with everyone else. This is a great moment in our history. But it will take way more than one person, one inauguration, however historic, to put this country right. It will take the clear-eyed, fierce determination of all those who love freedom and justice to come to the aid of their country.

Winter Solstice Prayers

When I pray, I ask for exactly what I really want, not what seems realistic or possible or likely. In my experience, miracles are more likely when you look for them. Please feel free to add your own.

I pray that the women of this earth would be healed and strengthened and empowered and fulfilled, especially the women of Darfur, Congo, and Central America.

I pray that the children of this earth would be well nourished and well cared for, well educated and well respected, and that they would be seen as the miraculous treasures they are.

I pray for the end of violence, especially violence as policy. I pray for protection and healing and refuge for those living in lands ravaged by violence and war.

I pray for a worldwide end to bigotry. I pray that peoples of different races, and cultures, and backgrounds would stop viewing each other with suspicion and hate and would begin listening to, loving, and respecting each other.

I pray that every person and every family would have a good source of income, that everyone who wants to work would be able to work and would be fairly treated in the workplace and fairly compensated.

I pray that my country would return to the rule of law, complete with checks and balances.

I pray that my country and the world would have better leaders, leaders who would listen, and think deeply about the complex issues every nation faces, and that they would be granted wisdom and vision to help establish peace and prosperity and good will and understanding.

I pray that the people and communities whose lives have been devastated by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids would be healed and restored and provided for in abundance and that the ICE raids would end immediately.

I pray that people who want to work hard and support their families would be welcomed to this country with open arms and that we would all be able to see what a blessing they are to our communities and to our economy.

I pray that peoples of different faiths and cultures would learn to understand and respect each other.

I pray that we would learn to love and respect those who are different from us in any respect: skin color, language, nationality, culture, beliefs, body size, sexual orientation ...

I pray that we would all learn how to forgive each other and be instruments of healing and joy in each other's lives.

I pray that my culture would be freed from its rampant, insidious, toxic consumerism.

I pray that we would learn to cherish the earth and take care of it and bring it back from the brink of destruction before it's too late.

I pray that people all over the world would have their human rights and their human dignity protected and honored and upheld.

I pray that policies driven by greed, fear, bigotry, and arrogance would be replaced with policies driven by generosity, courage, fairness, and compassion.

I pray that we would all learn how interconnected we are and that we are more alike than we are different.

Finally, I pray for a special little blessing of joy for all those who read this.

Merry Christmas, feliz navidad, joyous Kwanzaa, happy Hanukkah, blazing solstice, happy diwali, and a rollicking whatever else you might be celebrating!