i write in order to find my way through. i write to metabolize pain. so i find my way to this space on a fourth of july morning which feels more like a funeral than a celebration. even my letters are feeling the tightness in my throat. (deep breath prayer for a moment)
As a clinical social worker I support others in feeling the pain they are trying to avoid through using behaviors and substances that are hurting them. For as the psalmist says, we WALK through the valley of the shadow of death, we can’t run through with our eyes shut and expect to find our way to a wide-open plain or a mountaintop.
Many of the people I serve describe in one way or another their “dread” of what they fear may be right around the corner: what their partner isn’t telling them, what new increase of expectations at work awaits them, what work they will never find to give them the ability to leave an abusive relationship, what crisis their child will face next in a school that’s under-resourced and doesn’t know how to help. This week’s news about the “big, beautiful bill” being passed by Congress has confirmed for many that the “dread” held for quite some time has finally come to pass. This is where many find themselves today, unsure of how to even think, let alone feel, about what it means to be American, or patriotic, on this national holiday.
Even though it’s not required as a therapist, I most always ask about spirituality in my intake session with a client, even if they have checked the box “none” in their on-boarding paperwork. I’m always hoping that they may have a regular means by which they lean into the Love and Light which many call the divine or God—whether it’s through intentionally imbibing L & L by being in natural settings, or finding Life through a creative art form they enjoy doing, or serving other people in need, looking for gratitude inside themselves, or giving themselves in meaningful ways to a community of people gathered around Love and Light.
Unfortunately, it is incredibly rare that people have a means by which they connect to the force field of Love and Light that hums and shimmers inside every cell of their body and the chair they sit upon. Another name for this force field is the Holy Spirit in the Christian tradition. Opening ourselves to an awareness of it is what we call a spiritual practice: it’s where we tap into the divine spark at the center of who we are and the inherent groundedness and calm for our entire nervous system therein.
What we know is that a person’s perception of reality is shaped by the degree of tone in their vagal nerve—by how healthy their nervous system is operating. And when a person’s system is always in what we call “Fight, Flight, Freeze, Submit, or Attach” it’s impossible for them not see “dread.” We need means by which we can genuinely feel connected and calm and safe—which with the new budget just passed this week will be made incredibly difficult for people already on the margins in this country.
But if I am a person whose healthcare and financial security is sound enough to keep me able to find calm, connected, and safe throughout the day so that I have room to set aside fear, denial, self-indulgence, compulsive habits and addictive behavior, now is the time for me to use my privilege to do just that. For we need, with the help of God, to develop a new vision for ourselves as a diverse people that cannot be imagined or articulated by people unable to see only “dread.”
Yes, we must grieve. Acknowledging and feeling the pain of this massive destruction to what was already a fragile “safety net” for so many children and their families in this country needs to be mourned by metabolizing the sorrow a bit every day, as I did above with breath and prayer. But those of us with privilege, with enough vagal tone to rest often in what social workers call one’s “window of tolerance,” need to find and strengthen spiritual practices that will expand their capacity to help this nation write a new Declaration of Interdependence.
Without actively utilizing our spirituality, all we will see is the “dread” or the “shoe drop” while in “Fight, Flight, Freeze, Submit and Attach” thinking. We will angrily attack, flee from the suffering around us through entertainment, deny reality by numbing out through self-indulgence, submit to what seems the path of least resistance, or attach ourselves to the powerful people around us who promise us peace.
It was Jesus the Christ who said, “The truth will set you free” (John 8:32b). The truth is that our country has had leaders like Frederick Douglass and Fannie Lou Hamer, and so many others, who have found ways to celebrate on the 4th of July even as they fought for truth. We can do the same, friends. This country’s original Declaration of Independence fell far short of inclusivity and “life, liberty, and happiness” for all, and we now know that it will be the work of EVERY generation, not just ours, to resist complacency and revive democracy. The work NEVER will end because as Frederick Douglass said in the conclusion of his 1852 speech “What to a Slave is the Fourth of July?”:
Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. ‘The arm of the Lord is not shortened,’ and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. . . .
On July 4, 1964 Fannie Lou Hamer hosted a picnic for the Black and white volunteers who had worked with her that summer in challenging the callous cruelty that was enshrined in our national policies in our country at that time. The work was far from over. And the work will never end if we acknowledge the truth that life is both inherently unfair (hard things happen to everyone, not just those who “deserve it”), and profoundly interdependent (creating gated communities only works for a few, for a short time).
Maybe what we celebrate today is the realization that “if there is no struggle, there is no progress…” (another bit of wisdom from F. Douglass). We must choose to claim a regular spirituality that will sustain us, deepen us, strengthen us for the long haul. There is no way back. But God promises to never leave us alone or abandoned.
Today may we lean in and trust the Love and Light which is holding and carrying and believing in us—through the valley of the shadow of death—to a brighter plain.
Tending to the Margins 
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