Coping

more explanations

Dear Everyone,

Thank you for your notes

in this impossible time and for

suggestions of good words

and good songs. Today

although there are fires

(fires!) and frightening problems

today there is sun, and so many

of us are figuring out

what we can do next.

from Peter Dreier

My friend Jesse Rothstein teaches economics and public policy at UC-Berkeley. He taught a class at 8 am this morning and had to figure out something to say about the election. Here's what he came up with. I found it very moving and hopeful.

"My grandmother was born to an upper-middle-class Jewish family in Berlin. I'm sure the world looked bright to her when she was growing up. But as it turned darker, she had to flee Berlin to Amsterdam, then flee Amsterdam to the U.S. She wound up raising two children as a single mother, at a time when that was Not Done, in a country she had never dreamed of living in, in a world that had gone absolutely insane. Her parents, most of her siblings, and most of her other relatives died in the camps.

Nevertheless, when I was growing up, she was a community activist, working for marginal improvements to economic policy for lower-income people in California. The world took a lot of giant steps backward in her life, but she still found the energy to try to push it one small step forward.

I've never been religious, but there's a Jewish teaching that has always been meaningful to me: "It is not incumbent upon you to complete the work, but neither are you at liberty to desist from it." (For those who want to look it up, it is Pirkei Avot 2:21; I'm sure there are other translations around.)

We all need to find our own ways to continue working toward a world that is better for our presence, whether or not it is the world we had hoped for. As I work through today's news, I will be trying to remind myself that there is still work for me to do. I hope that you can all keep that in mind as well."

Thank you Jeff Vogel for this song by Iris Dement.