When you’re singing in a choir or playing in an orchestra, there are moments that the music swells around you on stage. As the group moves together towards crescendo, vibrating sound waves have a visceral effect. You are bathed in sound even as you sing, as you play, as you contribute your part to the whole. The experience is more than physical; it has qualities that are energetic, emotional, and, for some, even spiritual.
Recently, after a summer of unmasked and largely unrestricted reconnection here in the United States, a swell of anxiety and angst moved towards crescendo. After the joy of summer, it felt like we made a hard left turn. I can always sense it coming—a feeling in the air, a hard-to-qualify energy—until I notice more and more people around me voicing the same concerns. By that time the sound is deafening.
From my vantage point, it went like this: The rise of the Delta variant collided with the return of the school year. Data from outbreaks led to new masking guidelines. Both sides—because public health matters are inexplicably divisive—grew more angry with the other. One side is mad that the other’s vaccine hesitancy created the conditions necessary for Delta to thrive. The other is upset because they don’t want to wear masks, get vaccinated, or feel discriminated against for their choices. Meanwhile, parents wonder why so many are unconcerned with keeping little ones safe from a variant that’s causing infections to rise among young people.
The pandemic hurt everyone. This crisis should never have been left or right, progressive or conservative, rich or poor. At every turn, we should have chosen life over death, health over sickness, safety over profit. But politicians saw an opportunity to put power over the wellbeing of their constituents and took it. Freedom and health should have never been placed on opposite sides of the aisle.
In the midst of that storm, when it seemed our anxiety could not worsen, the United Nation’s IPCC Report delivered devastating news. Life-threatening aspects of the climate emergency—heat waves, severe weather patterns, and rising sea levels—are now considered irreversible. Some of the largest glaciers in West Antarctica may collapse earlier than anticipated, which means sea levels could rise as much as six feet by 2100.
“Once you have melting under way, it’s very hard to rein it in,” Kim Cobb, a co-author of the report from Georgia said. A two-foot rise is now considered likely, which means my generation’s children—the ones currently navigating preschool in a pandemic—will grapple with mass evacuation of millions globally, and the resulting disappearance of agricultural land. If a two-foot rise guarantees chaos—and it does—then I cannot imagine six.
Our time is up, and the music is getting louder.
Robinson Myer wrote in The Atlantic that the time scales of climate change “which once seemed distant—are suddenly ticking by at the speed of the political or business calendars.” And I see his point. The next decade of elections will be critical in determining how much climate catastrophe we can avert—or not. What a weight to carry. I will vote for candidates who demonstrate moral imperative on this issue and ask friends and family to do the same.
But the truth is, we need more than legislation.
The problems of our time reach beyond government seats and legislative halls. We cannot fight or vote our way out of this. It is too late for that. Over the past forty years, our priorities made themselves clear, and greed and power, left unchecked, destroyed the very balance of life on Earth.
This era, with its cacophony of bad news and existential dread, demands a radical shift in what we, collectively, believe it means to exist together on Planet Earth. We need a revolution of hearts and minds. We need soul-level changes in perspective that, like sound waves coming from musicians on stage, radiate outward to the world. When hearts are broken and souls are searching, political accusations and agendas have no effect.
We humans are, as Carl Sagan famously said, made of star stuff. We hold the cosmos within ourselves. Our composition mirrors the qualities of nature herself in miraculous ways. Yet, as I wrote last week, we are fundamentally disconnected from nature.
If that is true, then we are fundamentally disconnected from ourselves.
That disconnection leads people, in varying ways and to varying degrees, to question their place on the very planet we need to save. When people crave belonging, when they live with questions about who they are and where they fit, doubting their intrinsic value as humans, dangerous cycles are initiated.
People seek that missing piece—belonging, and the feeling of safety that comes with it—in a variety of places, including dangerous ideologies, which are gaining strength around the world. They find camaraderie and connection in shared perspective, no matter how damaging that perspective is. When people are cut off from their inherent worth—put another way, their divine star stuff within—it prevents them from recognizing that worth in fellow humans and the world around them.
John Lewis said that “in the bosom of every human being, there is a spark of the divine.” Precious, mysterious stardust. That knowledge fueled the Civil Rights Movement and its leaders’ vision of the beloved community. As Krista Tippett and Reverend Jen Bailey pointed out in a recent episode of On Being, the Civil Rights Movement focused on legislation, and in the end, though progress was made, legislation was not enough.
When the music swells towards its anxious crescendo in the coming months, and again in years ahead, let us remember that the greatest work lies within ourselves. By recognizing our own divine spark, we can more easily locate our neighbor’s. By finding a sense of belonging, we can offer something similar to those beside us. By seeking joy alongside grief, we invite others to do the same.
The benefits, like sound waves, radiate outwards.
What can transform hearts and minds? What will help us prioritize radical care over profit, power, and convenience? Can looking beyond lawmaking push us in the right direction?
I don’t have the answers. But I am comforted to see more people asking these questions.
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In my world, this swell of collective delta and climate anxiety met personal anxiety over the past two weeks: I am entering a period of transition and had tons to do before it started. My mind wrestled with self-inflicted obligations and expiring timelines. On top of that, my beloved Herbie (the canine soulmate, if you’re new here) had a procedure on Monday that required anesthetization. We do it twice a year now, to maintain oral health and protect his precious organs from periodontal disease, but it never gets easier. I had to quit coffee for a few days to survive.
My family has been waiting for this oncoming period of transition for three years now. I finally sense, in the way you feel a freight train barreling down the tracks before you can actually see it, that huge changes are ahead. Though the wait was agonizing and took every ounce of our faith and dedication—and occasionally, our sanity—I am beginning to see that every step was necessary. The universe was preparing us, sometimes in ways we couldn’t understand, for a freight train.
I say this with no small amount of wonder: We are finally ready to hop aboard.
WE’RE ALL FRIENDS HERE is written by Lauren Maxwell. If you enjoy this newsletter, you can support it by becoming a sponsor. You can also click the heart, share online, or forward to a friend. It all helps!