Today, at noon, I stood in the crisp sunshine of a 17-degree day, gazing up at a frozen waterfall just below the rim of the Cumberland Plateau, a mile and a half from the nearest road.
There, with no news, no TV, no Internet, I listened to sheets of ice cracking in the warming sun and crashing from clifftops down the slopes below.
This was my choice of how to spend the day today, a way of grounding my body and soul in the deep reality of earth and sky in a place where I find it easy to attune to the quiet omnipresence of God. Meanwhile, 500 or so miles away, a ceremony took place to complete an arc of the un-reality that has taken hold of my country and countrymen over the past decade.
As that arc bends out now in chaotic ways (some we can predict, some even the most astute observers will be shocked by), dedication to reality in all its dimensions is the path for anyone who wants to hold on to something different. We have to lean into integrity. However much it may seem that ideas and facts, laws and traditions, no longer hold sway in the public square, reality as enacted by people of character in mercy, justice, duty, and love will speak loudly.
The other evening, my family and I sat down to watch a recording of Jimmy Carter’s state funeral. It was an unsought, bittersweet blessing to witness the world pause to remember a man whose life and service spoke integrity at every step, even when it cost him politically. Our older three kids (15, 13, 10) sat through a 2-and-a-half hour funeral service, in thrall to testimonies to the power of integrity from family and colleagues. Reality commands attention.
As we watched floods ravage my home state this fall, and firestorms sweep Los Angeles this month, conspiracy theories and finger pointing flew around the Internet. What rings true amid the chaos are not delusional recriminations, but the hard labor of rescuers and the love and watch-care of neighbors for one another. Reality breaks through when hardship strips scales from calloused eyes.
So, although the thread of reality will be hard to keep hold of in this season—and it will be exhausting and feel futile just digesting the daily swirl of vital news—I’m holding on. I’m remembering how to pray; I’m living into solidarity with a crucified and risen Lord who is reality itself; I’m walking in peace and truth with all my neighbors. The facts that matter, the facts that persuade, will be the lived way of caring for those we love and those who are vulnerable with patient courage.
I’ve been re-reading a seminal text of twentieth century resistance to corrupt power, Vaclav Havel’s Power of the Powerless. There is wisdom here for all of us, but what Havel brings forward is that regimes rise and fall not based on how much power they wield, but on whether or not they can bend toward truth—that it is reality which determines the arc of history. Character is destiny precisely because character is the measure of our willingness to live in light of things as they truly are.
I’ll let Havel have the last word: “It is of great importance that the main thing—the everyday, thankless and neverending struggle of human beings to live more freely, truthfully and in quiet dignity—never imposes any limits on itself, never be half-hearted, inconsistent, never trap itself in political tactics, speculating on the outcome of its actions or entertaining fantasies about the future. The purity of this struggle is the best guarantee of optimum results.”
*poetry snaps poetry snaps*