Desert Wisdom and Democracy - by Diana Butler Bass
I’m on a meditation retreat in the great western desert. The hosts frown on cell phones. Upon arriving at this place, guests are given a little sleeping bag for digital devices. It is strongly suggested we not even touch them while here.
That means, of course, I’m in a community of adults who are like teenagers sneaking beer. People are mostly good about staying away from the online world — but there are more than a few cheaters.
That also means that, even in this quiet and remote place, we heard about last night’s debate. Or, perhaps, a better word might be debacle.
But I’m not in a world of quick takes. Indeed, everything around me right now is about the long view, the inner view, the reflective view. I’m writing in the shade of great, ancient mountains whose two “parent” rocks date back 1.4 billion and 50 million years. A toad just hopped past me. There are toads around. It is monsoon season here. Mostly, the toads live underground. They only come out for about a month during this strange season to mate.
Thus, I’m looking at 1.4 billion years and 30 days in the same field of vision.
The long view. The transient existence. Noticing gives you pause. I’ve no quick take to offer on these things, this mysterious, awe-filled, wonder in which we live. All I can do is catch my breath and say thank you. I do know that this place throws me back on my feet, makes me think about time and life differently.
All of life. Even political debates.
The debate about the debate rages on social media (I confess: I peeked!) and elsewhere. I can’t add a quick take. Who knows what should or will happen?
Instead, I woke up thinking about these lines from Teilhard de Chardin:
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through some stages of instability —
and that it may take a very long time.
Yes, there is democratic urgency.
Life is short. Ask the toads.
But the project of earth-making is long. Ask the mountains.
We humans live in the middle, muddling along.
Although, to be honest, we’re more like the toads than the rocks. I’m thinking that toads don’t do well with politics.
We can do better. We must do better. But better won’t arise with internet croaking.
Quick takes do not a democracy make.
What if we re-embrace the idea that democracy is a communal project? Together, we are writing a long story of justice, liberty, and equality. Each chapter in the story matters, but the whole isn’t written in a single event, by a single leader, or in a single election.
We’re writing democracy every day. All of us. That’s the thing about democracy. If done well, unlike toad brevity, it might generative over the long run. Not for a month or year or an administration. But for decades, for centuries. Maybe more. I hope more.
Can we trust the slow work that God has put in our hands? Can we trust one another as we make our way through the middle chapters? Can wise patience guide this project? Can we think of this moment as a plot twist as we wend toward a more rewarding next chapter?
The desert raises far more questions than it answers. That is as it always has been.
The meditation gong just sounded.
Breathe. Don’t just listen for alarm bells, but hear the resonant chime calling to a deeper, longer wisdom.
Slowly, slowly wisdom gathers:
Golden dust in the afternoon,
Somewhere between the sun and me,
Sometimes so near that I can see,
Yet never settling, late or soon.
Would that it did, and a rug of gold
Spread west of me a mile or more:
Not large, but so that I might lie
Face up, between the earth and sky,
And know what none has known before.
Then I would tell as best I could
The secrets of that shining place:
The web of the world, how thick, how thin,
How firm, with all things folded in;
How ancient, and how full of grace.
— Mark Van Doren
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The arc of the moral universe is long, But it bends toward justice.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
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