Turning Unsettling into A Party
I was delighted when my host mama, Barbara invited me to join her for this demonstration for housing rights. I was so moved by the spirit, music, good vibes. Olympia and other protests are increasingly aggressive. Hostility at protests decreases tolerance levels from sympathizing domiciled residents’. I’m not against aggressive direct action movements. However, I think we can create a culture of acceptance toward demonstrations, but it is more difficult to create that in the U.S.A because the systems of oppression that are institutionalized are very powerful. Ils sont encrer dans nos societes. We have got to break down these systems. In a talk with a local after the demonstration I was reminded of this Thomas Merton quote:
“There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”
